A distant inheritance

This story starts many years ago, long before what might colloquially be called ‘my time.’ The nub of the story is the disputed succession to the Lordship of Coldwrack Keep. Now even by the undemanding standards of Partann, Coldwrack was not numbered among the larger or more prestigious keeps. Indeed over the years successive Lords of Coldwrack had encouraged younger siblings to migrate to Port Naain where they could continue their careers of banditry and extortion in the cities thriving usury sector.

The Lord at the time our story commences was Tildart the Sot. As Lords go he was probably no better and no worse than many others. Indeed it could be claimed that his love of the bottle (or perhaps the barrel) kept him from many other, more socially unacceptable, vices. But it must be said that it did undermine his health, and thus he was forced at last to summon his brother, Aldabarn, to act as regent. Aldabarn, a successful accountant, arrived just in time. Barely twenty-four hours after he reached the keep, his brother Tildart collapsed, foaming at the mouth after draining his tankard too quickly.
Aldabarn, known more formally, as Aldabarn III Baltoi, wasn’t a success as a keep lord. He was notorious for his penny pinching. His guards wore elderly mail of some antiquity. Indeed it was so old that the rings had worn thin. Similarly he laid off half of them on the grounds he didn’t need so many to defend the keep. Indeed he’d done a careful statistical analysis of all recorded attacks on keeps, and this proved that the one place never attacked was the main door. This I can understand, the Partannese are instinctively duplicitous and a simple, straightforward, assault would never occur to them.

Unfortunately the attack on Coldwrack Keep was led by Smurgle Hack. He was only really happy when swinging a huge axe with lethal intent, so of course he just hewed his way through the main door. Aldabarn died, his poorly recompensed followers fled and Smurgle became Lord. This led, inevitably, to Bunkan Sot (who had taken his father’s nickname as a family surname) riding south to take the keep. He had done his research, so it took him a number of years to come up with a plan that convinced him of its potential efficacy. Effectively he worked out that if he rode down on his own he would have an element of surprise which would guarantee him victory.

Perhaps luckily for him, he rode into the tower just as the kitchen maid, Hazal Thrug had poisoned Smurgle for seducing her and then casting her off. Hazal hastily seduced Bunkan. Then once her position was assured, she cast him off, terminally. She then ruled in her own right, until she was in turn betrayed by a captain of locally raised freebooters. At that point the keep seems to have gone into decline, or at least word no longer came north. But in Port Naain, we have four mutually hostile families. The Sots, the Baltoi, the Hacks, and the Thrugs. Initially everybody knew who was who. The problem came perhaps two generations on. By and large, the male members of the family had ridden south to cast an eye over Coldwrack Keep. They would then ride home again wearing a thoughtful expression and would throw themselves into their work. A lot of them, finding the atmosphere of Port Naain oppressive, moved to Prae Ducis, Avitas, or Fluance. Some crossed the mountains and disappeared into the east.

The family claims were upheld by the ladies of the four families. Now this is where the cultural peculiarities of Port Naain and Partann complicate our story. In Partann a lot of land is inherited on the mother’s side. Not all of it, just most of it. Yet women will take their husband’s surname on marriage. This has been assumed by many to be a ruse adopted by women to make it harder to track who used to be whom.

This meant that whilst the four families appeared to disappear from Port Naain, yet in point of fact, only the names disappeared. Ladies still held claims to Coldwrack Keep and were fierce in pressing their claim. This they could do from a position of comparative anonymity.

Yet Port Naain forced them to change their tactics. Even in Partann, loyal family retainers were not always as loyal as one might hope. Indeed it has been suggested that loyalty is maintained more by the complex web of feud and counter-feud than by any sense of moral purpose. In Port Naain, these feuds are less pervasive and loyalty might be more fungible. Thus one family retainer, sent to assassinate a senior usurer climbed in through the office window. The usurer, without even looking up, merely commented, “Fetch me the head of your mistress and I will pay you its weight in silver.”

The would-be assassin, realising that he wasn’t being paid to kill the usurer (such tasks being considered part of normal household duties and thus covered by the uninspiring salary) re-evaluated the situation. They returned two hours later, their mistress’s head carefully bound up in her largest (and heaviest) wig. The usurer weighed the whole assemblage on the kitchen scales and paid silver, including the wig in the weight.

It’s the same with poisons. A young lady in Partann, with ready access to natural fresh ingredients, could bake a cake. If you ate a slice she could tell you, to the minute, your life expectancy. But in Port Naain they were forced to turn to dried and preserved ingredients and the results were disappointing. One lady served her enemy a generous slice of cake which had been cooked with Fools Lemon Grass. The problem was that she had had to include so much of the lemon grass you couldn’t nibble on a slice, you had to rend it with your teeth. On top of it all, the sole effect of this poisoning attempt was that the victim was cured of their constipation and sent a maid round to beg the recipe.

I am unsure whether it is a sign of the civilising influence of Port Naain, or whether the old blood runs thin, but such things rarely happen nowadays. Insults and ‘accidents’ are more subtle. Pride may be hurt, vanity punctured (and often no bad thing) but it is rare anybody gets too badly hurt. It is a long time since a lady’s gown ‘spontaneously’ caught fire. Accidents where soup is spilled are more common. Indeed I can remember when an entire tray of steamed chopped mushrooms was poured down a lady’s décolletage.

There are times when things get a little out of hand. I remember when one lady arranged for three roads to be ‘accidentally’ blocked. One was blocked by an overturned night soil cart, another by a brewer’s dray which had shed its load. The third was blocked by a group of rioting floral designers who built a fire across the road as a protest at the city allegedly contemplating a twenty dreg a bunch tariff on flowers brought into the city.

The issue here is that the blocking of the roads prevented guests arriving at a significant birthday ball being held in honour of another lady. Thus the feud was continued for another generation.

Still the general feeling is that these things happen when otherwise perfectly normal ladies fall out. There is a feeling that little can be blamed on Partann.
Still, it must be said, if a young lady wishes to call her firstborn son Tildart, Aldabarn, Smurgle, or Bunkan, the wise mother-in-law is advised to suggest to her son that he and his bride spend a few years on the family estates, well out of Port Naain. Alternatively he could merely take her to see the ruins of what was once Coldwrack Keep.

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Should you wish to know more about life in Partann

As a reviewer commented, “All Jim Websters expected miniaturists eye mix of detailed world and character building, whimsy,keaton like madcap action and philosophy. Excellent as ever”