Chapter 3. Court Duty
The day before the boar hunt, the Queen and Prince received a deputation from the major guilds in the city. The reception was held in the main court hall in the Teyrn's estate.
The most important dignitaries were Mistress Veda of the carpenter's guild and Master Theron of the merchant's guild. Mistress Veda was a stocky grey haired woman with a determined chin dressed in deep blue velvet. Master Theron was a portly man with a round face, dressed in green. Both wore clothes richly lined with gold and wore much jewellery.
Their appearance was seemed almost garish to Michael. He felt the instinctive distaste many noblemen felt for how merchants often displayed their wealth to assert their prestige. His father had never condoned overly luxurious dressing.
Once all the leaders of guilds had introduced themselves and presented various gifts, they where seated around a large table to discuss the guilds petitions to their court.
Michael had awaited this session with some trepidation. He did not want Anora to just assume that she could run Gwaren as her personal fief, which was more or less how she had acted so far. If he was Teyrn of Gwaren, then she would have to trust him and let him be that.
At the same time this was hardly the best occasion for him to assert his role. Most of the time the guilds wanted to discuss economical matters, like taxes, profit and regulation, and this was an area where she clearly outshone him.
Anora had an amazing capacity to absorb facts and numbers, he reflected. She did not like to trust others to supply her with facts that she could check herself. Some people would obsess so much with minutiae that they lost sight of the big picture, but he knew that this was definitely not so in her case. Still, he mused, it was so like her to bury herself in piles of accounts when she got there to get into the situation.
He had tried to discuss his role as Teyrn with Anora yesterday, but she had hardly had time to talk to him. When she finally got to bed, a time where they sometimes could discuss privately without the pressure of office, she had been too tired to listen. He decided that he would just have to try and act his role, with her approval or not.
Anora seemed to know most of the guild leaders from before and spent some time with small talk to some of them, before the discussions began.
Michael took a deep breath and just as Anora was going to call them to order, he pre-empted her.
"My lords and ladies," he said. "I know I have not had the time to properly introduce myself to you before, but now I can finally rectify this. As your new Teyrn I welcome you all here."
When he finished he had everyone's eyes fixed on him, including Anora's. She looked as she was going to say something, but then pursed her mouth and looked at him with an odd expression on her face.
There was no turning back now, Michael thought, and continued.
"I know there are no doubt many issues you wish to discuss and it is so seldom I can be here, so please bring all your matters before this court."
There was a moment of silence as many of the present guild leaders looked at him and Anora unsure where to turn.
"Please present your cases to your... Teyrn." Anora said tersely, when the silence began to embarrass them.
One by one the guild leaders began to speak. Michael had watched Anora enough times to know roughly what to expect. Most guilds depended on other guilds. Carpenters depended on loggers and landowners, loggers depended on blacksmiths, blacksmiths depended on iron merchants and so on. All guilds wanted regulations to ensure a steady stream of supplies at a fixed low cost and all guilds wanted freedom to price their own goods as highly as possible.
Mistress Veda of the carpenters guild made along speech about the importance of their manufacture to the prosperity of Gwaren and ended her speech by a rather blatant attempt to get approval for a regulation that would force all landowners to sell lumber to the guild at a fixed price, Michael assumed was far lower than the market price.
Michael looked at Anora, who only stared silently at him. There was no representative of the land owners to gainsay Mistress Veda's demand, so Michael retorted to asking her questions. He had no intent of giving in to their demands. Anora usually seemed to think that price regulations often caused more harm than good so that seemed the wisest policy until he knew more.
A few more questions confirmed his suspicion that the guild mistress was really only trying to gain an unfair advantage over the land owners, so Michael found a suitably polite way to turn her down, that failed to placate her, but actually won him, what he imagined was a small approving nod from his wife.
Next followed a petition from Master Theron, who complained about conniving Antivan merchants who stole too much business from the honest Ferelden merchants. Apparently the main evil of the Antivan merchants consisted of offering better prices than the guild. Michael knew that many places protected the local merchants, and it was in their long term interest that Ferelden merchants travelled to Anitva, rather than just the opposite.
But during one of his many lessons, his father Bryce had also mentioned that letting a guild have monopoly of all trade could lead to abuse. There had been an unusual amount of Antivan merchants in the town though. He figured that a raise in the taxation of Antivan merchants would be in order, but had no clue what an appropriate rate would be.
He decided to ask Anora what the taxation on Foreign merchants elsewhere was. She pursed her mouth and supplied him with some figures and he picked one and told Master Theron that this would be the new rate for the Antivan merchants. The guild master bowed and thanked him, but without real enthusiasm, which made Michael suspect he had picked a fair number.
The rest of the day at court, followed the same pattern. Often Michael wanted to scream silently to himself, at the greed and pettiness of the guilds. He could readily understand how many of the old nobility looked down on them with disdain. He had to remind himself that it was no doubt this blatant greed of the guilds that made them so effective in generating wealth, and wealth was a benefit to the Crown too.
He found that the easiest way to keep some semblance of control over the gathering, with his limited knowledge of the subjects, was to ask as many questions as possible. At least this forced the guild masters to turn to him, rather than squabble between themselves.
At times he turned directly to Anora for her opinion or a fact, and she readily responded with any facts he needed, but seldom offered any opinion. At times she seemed to struggle not to involve herself in some debates. Usually Michael took this as his cue to end the debate. Other times he consciously directed them to Anora instead of him, when he felt the issues involved had bearing on the Crown, rather than just local matters.
After what seemed like an, the court ended. The guild leaders one by one reaffirmed their loyalty to him and the queen before leaving, though often with considerably less enthusiasm than earlier this morning. Michael forced himself to smile, but inwardly he felt like he had been put through a miller's wheel. This was far worse than any court in Amaranthine, he reflected.
At last only he and Anora remained, except for a few guards lining the walls. Michael chewed his lip and waited for Anora's opinion of his actions during the day.
"I wish you had informed me of what you had planned today," Anora said tersely. "I could have prepared this much better with you, if I had known that you intended to take over this yourself," she said.
"I tried Anora," Michael said defensively. "You were too tired to even discuss things yesterday, if you remember."
Anora snorted at him. They both remained silent, while Michael wondered if this was going to be another row or not.
"I suppose that, under the circumstances, things could have been a lot worse," she said finally and tossed her head dismissingly.
Michael sighed with relief, as she left him. He seemed to have gotten away with it, at least for now.
