The Riddle - Alison Croggon [199]
The relationships between these different authorities were extremely complex, and varied from kingdom to kingdom, but they worked effectively to balance the possible extremes of each. Bardic authority was complementary to the civil authority of non-Bards, and each took supreme authority in different areas. Bards in the Seven Kingdoms were greatly respected. They provided education, expertise, and training in various arts and crafts; the rituals of the year such as the Midsummer Festival described in Thorold in The Riddle; spiritual authority; and (not unimportantly) a great deal of entertainment — music, in particular. Civil authorities took care of most areas of justice, administration, and defense, although there was a lot of crossover — for example, a plaintiff could appeal to a Bardic tribunal if he felt aggrieved by civic justice, and Bards, both as soldiers and mages, were important contributors to a region’s military power.
By their nature, the civic authorities tended to be parochial in their concerns, whereas the Bards’ view was wider. In practice, this led to cultures of negotiation and diplomacy, and mitigated against any tendencies to absolute rule. It also led to frustrations: the Bard Liric was not alone when he complained peevishly during a dispute over the placement of a bridge in N356 that the Councilors of Lirhan were “stiff-neck’d and ignorant” and that Lirhan’s citizenship was “barell-headed” for electing them. Many Bards complained over the centuries about the conservatism and resistance to change of the civic authorities. There were frequent arguments about trade and other interests between the different kingdoms: most of these kinds of disputes were resolved through the mediation of the Bards. However, despite these hiccups, nothing disturbed the model of dual authority in the Seven Kingdoms, and in the presence of external threat it was proverbial that all smaller disputes were forgotten to protect the common interest. The Seven Kingdoms were proud that they had been the centers of resistance to the Nameless One during the Great Silence, and both the civic authorities and the Bards nourished that tradition, represented by a common code of fealty to the Light and the Balance, which, at its best, balanced both local and general interests.
Although it was by far the largest in area and population of all the realms of Edil-Amarandh, Annar’s power over the surrounding territories was nonexistent: it was a relationship of cooperation, promulgated in large part by the practical unity of Bards. Any attempt by Annar to assert central rule was always resisted fiercely by the Seven Kingdoms.
The most serious crisis before the events of this book occurred during the Long Wars (N710–N751), when Dhuran the Red (so named for his red hair and bad temper) proclaimed Annaren the Empire and himself Emperor after a coup in which he assassinated his brother, Ilbaran III, in N710. His claim to rule the Seven Kingdoms by Right of the Triple Sceptre led to open warfare between the Seven Kingdoms and Annar. He launched invasions against Lanorial and Ileadh after they sharply rejected his authority as both illegitimate and a corruption of the Balance and the Light. The actual invasions were easily beaten back, since Dhuran was simultaneously embroiled in ruinous civil war against the sons of Ilbaran, Baran, and Ebaran, and did not have the