THE IRON CONSULTATION

[Draeris 3124]

THE IRON CONSULTATION

 

Within the bustling tavern of Adria, sat a platoon of soldiers and the newly appointed Magistrate. The hardened men couldn’t be helped but to be skeptical to the posh pencil pusher that sat across them.

“How can I make your daily lives easier?” asked the Magistrate, helping himself to his flask.

 

Declan Loch’Dyr, a soldier amidst the platoon, shot the first bolt by asking “Whatcha mean makin’ our lives better? Who may you be if I may ask so bold?”  It would be the start of a series of questions, and then a series of demands. From guardhouses to more patrols, training to codified law. The room became filled with conversation, the Magistrate overwhelmed by the group. Not only was there a cultural difference; but also a fundamental rift in personality. The scrawny bureaucrat didn’t feel comfortable amongst the armored men, while they couldn’t relate to the new figure talking about advisory roles and policy.

 

Yet, through sheer persistence, both parties managed to find an acceptable understanding. Following this exchange, the Magistrate wrote an advisory letter to His Excellency Duke A.v.J Sarkozic.

 

“Your Excellency the Duke A.v.J. Sarkozic,

 

I write to you as a result of a tough, ironlike consultation with your soldiers in Adria. The men seem to be involved with many pressing matters that the Magistrate’s Office could definitely help with.

 

I ask permission to recruit Sir Tybis de Ruyter as my Consultant-General to the Magistrate’s Office. I believe he will serve as a useful bridge between the army and myself, but also have meaningful value to the development of our Ducal legal codex.

 

I also wish to commission a proper courthouse so that we may put criminals to trial in a fashion that is befitting to a developed legal system.

 

Thank you for your consideration & understanding.

 

With high regards,

 

Your Magistrate Lawrence May.”

 

The Duke agreed with the proposals in the letter. And thus, a next step was taken in the grand structuring of Adria.

 

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[Harkon Silverwood 0]

*Declan Loch'Dyr smiles, approving of the new magistrate*

 

Welcom' to Adria!

[monkeypoacher 8055]

A letter is penned back to the magistrate:

 

“Dear Mssr. May,

 

I read your letter to His Grace (as is my wont as Chancellor), and I would like to offer up a suggestion to the Magistrate’s office. The division between this Duchy’s law enforcement and its army is the fine line between liberty and despotism. When, in some distant future, a descendant of His Grace calls upon mercenaries to defend his Right from invasion, will they be tasked with enforcing his laws, as well? What reason have those soldiers of fortune not to use such authority to plunder our Duchy? Will there be any recourse for the good, Canonist citizens against unjust seizure of property, fraudulent taxation and suffocating curfews? What assurance do they have of their most sacred and patriotic tradition – what of their Gradic Rights?

 

We need not look very far in the past to see what happens when a standing army becomes the citizens’ watch, and the citizens’ watch becomes nil. You may wonder why Ves, once a prosperous and free home for the Adrian people, has fallen to the barbarous despotate of Kaedrin. You may ask why that blighted name even exists, when long dead are the rulers of Chivay and d’Amaury is banished – it is because of the error you are now committing. It is because Ves conflated its army with its guardforce, and violated its founding institutions. It allowed the mutinous Caer Bann company to, through its deranged enforcement of the peace, stifle all opposition to kleptocracy and impose martial law on the unlucky remaining citizens.

I humbly ask for some of your time to discuss a petition, but since we are both busy men, I will give it to you now in summary. Instead of raising a member of the army to the post of Consultant-General, I suggest that Adria adopts a system of bailiffs – citizens appointed by yourself to keep the peace in Adria. The duchy would be divided into judicial bailiwicks, drawn around county lines where applicable, and by your discretion where not. The bailiffs would have the authority, exclusive to their bailiwicks to, personally or through soberly-appointed deputies, enforce the law. That way, the rule of law is preserved, but the charge of enforcing it falls to the citizens of Adria.

 

Yours sincerely,

Joseph Barrow-Nicéphore, Chancellor of Adria.”