Estate Rights (book)

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Estate Rights

by Czarra Proteo

It wasn't the noise in the tavern that Citharon minded. Bards are used to performing under all sorts of adverse conditions, including halls of festivity and fields of battle. Rather, it was the trajectory of a pewter plate which disturbed his concentration, as it spun across the room to destroy Citharon's bottle of wine (and a good wine it had been, too). That caused the bard to abandon his search for a particularly elusive rhyme and concentrate on the quarrel brewing by the bar, instead.

"Well," said one person loudly, "I'm noble, because I can go places you can't, buy things you can't buy, and because you smell bad, too." He gestured expansively with a large mug of Majeau's Red, which the latter tried (in vain) to get away from him.

"You're noble? You're a fool!" roared back another patron. "A privileged buffoon, like all the rest! It's high time we killed the lot of you, or left Zolauren and try to get away from your stinking breath!" Cursing, he pulled out a knife.

What with two sturdy customers drunk and armed and Majeau's best bouncer taking the night off for her birthing class, things were looking ugly. It was at this opportune juncture that Citharon decided to speak up.

"You know," he said, playing idly with the strings of his harp, "it's like I told Maur the other day. Maur, I said, what's nobility? A set of privileges, not a title. And any person can gain privileges for a regular outlay of cash, whether they have the intelligence of a musk hog or Firulf. What makes the difference is acting sensibly once you acquire privileges."

"Are you calling me a musk hog?" challenged the first drinker, swinging around to glare at Citharon.

"No," replied the bard calmly. "I'm going to tell you a story."

                     -------------

 The agent reached into one of the twenty-odd drawers of his
 sturdy oakwood desk, and withdrew a heavy sheath of gold-bordered
 papers.  He handed these to Rubade.  "There you are, your ticket
 to excitement," he said, smiling broadly.  "Your very own estate
 rights."

 Rubade stared at the untidy bundle.  "I paid you to procure
 *this* for me?"

 "You paid me," Vavadant said, "for excitement.  You wanted new
 experiences, something to help break you out of the round of
 common life.  Your words.  Not mine."

 The young woman experimentally scanned the papers.  They were
 written in an incomprehensible script.  "So these make me a
 noble?"

 "By no means.  They are not hereditary, nor come with titles, but
 are for lease and let to those who would pay the monthly fee."

 "How do I use these...things?"

 Vavadant shrugged his thin shoulders.  "That is entirely up to
 you, Storyteller.  They have several important effects.  I trust
 your intelligence is entirely equal to the process of invoking
 them at the proper time and place."  And with that, he turned
 away.

 Somewhat abashed, Rubade left the building with her newly-
 purchased estate rights in her satchel.  She was angered at her
 abrupt dismissal but intrigued, as well, by her newfound
 property.  Given her nature, it was only the matter of a few
 seconds and half-a-block's travel down Oralana Ramble before
 curiosity won out.  Just exactly what could these papers do for
 her?  The agent had mentioned "intelligence" and "invoking."
 Would she need to find a moon mage or cleric to help out?

 Which is precisely what she did; but only after spending hours
 attempting to decipher the document, secluded in one of Asemath
 Academy's darker and more cramped library cells.  Frustration
 finally drove her to the Temple of the Immortals.  There, she
 hailed the first cleric she happened upon-- a young, studious
 Halfling in flowing blue robes, whose embroidered insignia
 declared him a follower of Alamhif.

 "Pardon me," Rubade said, "but I have a small problem.  My name
 is Rubade.  Perhaps you could help me?"  She smiled hopefully
 into his eyes, a bard's weapon which few have the discipline to
 resist.

 The Halfling cleric smiled in reply.  "My name's Ka'leni.  What's
 the problem?"

 "This," said Rubade, thrusting the estate papers at him.  Ka'leni
 thumbed through the lot, nodded, and handed them back.  "How so?
 They seem like standard issue.  Perhaps if you were to speak to
 one of the clerks over at the Town Hall..."

 "So you can read it!" the bard exclaimed.  "Please-- tell me what
 it says.  I've just purchased it, and I'm dying to know how to
 exercise it's powers."

 Ka'leni tossed back the mop of his bronze-colored hair and
 chuckled.  "There's no magic in those estate rights.  You just,
 well, use them."

 Rubade stamped her foot impatiently.  "But how, and where?"

 Ka'leni pondered.  "Well, try this.  Go out the Eastern Gate, and
 then..."  He quickly described a set of directions through the
 wilderness.  "When you get there, you'll know exactly what to
 do."  Whereupon the cleric smiled, bowed, and continued on his
 way.

 It was late in the day, but this did not stop Rubade.  She was
 eager to try out her new possession, and no portly yellow disk
 moving lethargically towards its rest was going to stop her now.
 She hastened to the area indicated by the young cleric.

 The arbor was just as Rubade had remembered it for she had been
 to this place before: two small choirs of trees swaying
 rhythmically to either side of a trellised archway.  But the bard
 knew from personal experience that magic barred all entrance to
 the archway, and so had given the arbor no thought after that.
 This was, however, the place Ka'leni had mentioned.
 Experimentally, Rubade reached out her hand to the archway...and
 it passed through.  Blinking in surprise, Rubade followed.

 Several hours later the still of the arbor's nightful repose was
 broken as Rubade emerged, accompanied by a ranger and a war mage.
 All three were laughing.  "So you've never been in there before?"
 said Sherew, the ranger, wiping off his sword.

 Rubade shook her head.  "I've never been able to.  I tried it,
 once, and couldn't get by."

 "Estate papers are wonderful," opined the war mage.  His name was
 Osmeo.  "I was so completely sick of the sheer pressure of
 numbers out on the hunt.  It was more a matter of fighting off
 competition than goblins and cougars.  These private game
 reserves that are extensions of standard hunting areas have all
 the quarry you could wish, and such company as one encounters is
 far the most pleasant."  He smiled widely at Rubade, oblivious to
 the nudges he was receiving from his companion's bow.

 "We'll be seeing you later at the event?" asked Sherew.

 "Why?  Is tonight special?" Rubade said.

 He nodded.  "I'll say.  Special auction.  Estates rights holders,
 only."

 Osmeo cut in.  "I heard it was organized by a group of merchants,
 on advice of some Crossing official who didn't want too much
 competition for the speaking of his own kronars."  He winked.

 "Whatever the cause," the ranger continued, "it's at Town Hall,
 ten bells."  The party continued to Grisgonde's and Cormyn's, the
 latter haggling forever (and senselessly so, Rubade thought)
 until a nearly fair price was reached.
  
 Just then, the Temple bells pealed ten times.  Rubade started.
 "The auction!"

 Sherew swept the coins from the counter into his money belt.
 "Asking for an honest deal from Cormyn's always an adventure in
 time."  He sneered at the pawnbroker, who scowled back.

 Elbowing their way past a crowd of frustrated people who couldn't
 get by the doorway, the group just made it into the conference
 room in Town Hall before the bidding began.  To Sherew and Osmeo
 it may have been business as usual, but Rubade was delighted-- as
 much by the unusual selection of merchandise as by the tension
 which crackled through the room like a war mage's lightning bolt.
 There were rare and costly articles of clothing for sale, and a
 small but discriminating selection of fine weapons.  Rubade could
 not afford anything that evening, but took comfort in the thought
 that a few week's hunting in private game extensions would leave
 her more than capable the next time around.

 For three months matters continued in this fashion; and
 gradually, as the excitement of hunting and buying consumed more
 and still more of Rubade's waking moments, the fact that she owed
 her access to the estate rights faded from memory.  Her friends,
 after all, called her "Lady."  Didn't this indicate they'd
 recognized her nobility of manner?  All the private shopowners,
 merchants and auctioneers waved at her, not that mass of bulky
 papers she carried around in her satchel all the time.

 But it was the monthly tax that rankled most.  No matter where
 she was, when 30 days had passed, a smiling Town Hall
 representative would seek Rubade out, bow deeply, and inform her
 of the sum that had been removed from her bank account to pay for
 those so-called "rights."  It was annoying and it wasn't fair, to
 her mind.  For like many people who climb the ladder of success,
 Rubade would just as soon it was burnt for kindling wood
 afterwards rather than acknowledge the support she'd once
 received.

 Seeing the tax collector approach one fine summer's morning
 finally drove her to action.  Rubade dashed quickly into an
 alleyway and, observing herself alone, deposited the estate
 papers between a mound of refuse and a pockmarked brick wall.
  
 She emerged from the alley, prepared to face the tax collector
 and legitimately claim "I don't have the papers you refer to;
 please return my tax monies to my account at the earliest
 possible convenience."  But he merely nodded somewhat cursorily
 in her direction, and continued swiftly on his way.  Pleased with
 herself, Rubade, was even more delighted when she took notice of
 the alley she'd chosen for the paper's burial: one that lay
 directly against the offices of Vavadant, Agent and Procurer.

 Rubade hastened from the area, her heart even lighter than her
 satchel.  Weapon and shield in hand, she hurried to meet her
 friends at a recently uncovered mountain pass, beyond which (so
 it was rumored) were creatures that breathed poison and used
 emeralds in place of eyes to stare upon the world.

 But when Rubade arrived, the pass refused her.  There was no
 other word for it.  She approached repeatedly, running, jumping,
 and sneaking while hidden.  On each occasion, something invisible
 thrust her back.  It was then that Rubade recalled the missing
 estate papers.  "That can't be it," she grumbled, hurrying on to
 another private hunting area where the challenge was nearly as
 great and the treasure, not inconsiderable.

 Her luck was no better there, however.  No sooner did she attempt
 to open the iron gate then Rubade was forced back physically by
 an unseen force.  In haste she went to the other sites she had
 discovered over the last several months, but always with the same
 results.

 Disheartened, Rubade headed for the generally accessible forests
 where she'd once hunted, in hopes that they might be filled with
 dangerous beasts and empty of competition.  This was a vain hope,
 of course.  There were fewer trees than pushing, shoving hunters,
 and their screams of outrage drove away what quarry remained.

 Rubade finally realized her error in giving up the estate rights.
 She hurried back to the alleyway in the Crossing-- only to
 discover that her hiding place was hidden no longer.  The papers
 were gone.

 It was the kind of thing that would have brought anybody else to
 tears.  However, Rubade was a bard.  She removed her ivory-necked
 lute from its inlaid casing instead, and sought to express her
 feelings in music; but no sound emerged from the delicate
 instrument.  Then Rubade recalled that it was purchased from a
 shop open solely to estate rights holders.  Even the lute, it
 seemed, rejected her.

 A dry, wheezing cough brought her back to reality with a start.
 Standing at the entrance to the alley was Agent Vavadant.  He
 waved.  "What a distressed look for a client of mine.  Don't tell
 me you still haven't figured out how to invoke your estate
 rights?"  He gingerly picked his way across the assorted refuse
 that hadn't been scavenged yet.

 Rubade's pride was all but gone by now, and even Vavadant's words
 (the first directed to her personally all that very long day)
 seemed a welcome relief.  She explained all; she held nothing
 back.
  
 When Rubade at length finished, Vavadant nodded his complete
 agreement.  "Did you really think all those privately accessible
 hunting extensions, those special merchants, auctions and events,
 were just opened to you because of your sparkling personality?"

 "I did," Rubade replied.  And she bitterly reproached herself
 with enough words and heat to satisfy the sober agent.

 "Alright," he said at length.  "I'm content, Storyteller.  Here."
 He removed a sheath of dogeared but gold-bordered papers from a
 capacious sleeve of his robes.  "This is yours, I believe.  I
 happened to hear something outside my office window early this
 morning, and viewed a curious scene.  A bard was burying her good
 fortune among rubbish."

 Rubade may or may not have blushed, for the light was bad and the
 westering sun never reached that particular alley, anyway; but
 she had the good sense to accept the papers without comment, even
 though they reeked of ten different kinds of discarded
 substances.  And from that day forth she maintained her estate
 papers and did not complain, but regarded the monthly visitation
 by the tax collector as a small price to pay for the privileges
 of private hunting, dances, auctions, and an ivory-necked lute.

                        ------------

There was a long pause after Citharon finished his tale; long enough for the Halfling to take a few swigs from a fresh bottle of wine provided gratis by a grateful Majeau. Then the first of the two drunken customers regained sufficient control of his wits to respond.

"So...you're really calling me a musk hog, huh?" he said belligerently.

"You're wrong!" shouted the second man. "That shrimp's saying you're better than me!"

"He isn't! He's saying I'm no lord!"

"You're a lord of musk hogs!"

"I'm going to stuff that Halfling down your throat!"

"You aren't! I'm going to use him to knock your head down into your shorts!" They both looked around for Citharon.

But he was gone. The difference between a passable bard and a really good one is impeccable timing, as Maur was fond of confiding to the three moons after a long night of storytelling and drink.