The High Stewardship

The High Stewardship rules from rooms where splendour has been pared down to consequence. There are no gilded promises here, only wax seals, black ledgers, slate-blue robes, witness benches, iron chains of office, and messengers waiting with mud drying on their boots. Grain, soldiers, bridges, hostages, roads, and funerals all pass through the same hands. Petitioners call the office heartless when it denies them and providential when its stores arrive before starvation. Both judgements are true enough. The Stewardship exists because Caerdun fears the hour when a realm must be saved faster than honour can explain itself.