To Battle Pledged
Tenth Day of the Fifth Month 294 AC
The lord of Horn Hill makes your first true
political appointment, not that you doubt the man's skills in logistics as much as in command during the war, but the proverbial feather that tipped the scales was the fact that he would be the first Minister of old Westerosi blood, if not high titles in your council of ministers. Though as with most things that involve politics, there is a bit of mummery to play. If Randyll Tarly is to be Minister of War then he cannot be Duke, and if he cannot be Duke, another of his line must rule in his stead. And no matter how high Samwell should climb in the esteem of the Scholarum, he does not live up to his father's expectations.
It shall have to be Dickon, the youngest child, a boy not yet seven, and after him his sister's children, so long as they take the Tarly name, and after them Samwell and any children he may some day sire. Judging from the way his father says the last, you suspect the Lord of Horn Hill doubts his son shall ever show enough 'manhood' to even father a child. You can only thank good fortune and foresight both for keeping the boy out of these talks. He would have likely cried yet more bitterly for it than the loss of his birthright... well, not his birthright, truly more the love of his father which you are beginning to suspect he never had.
The best you can do is put out the story that Lord Tarly is naming his youngest heir upon his abdication in expectation of Samwell rising high in the Scholarum, where like his father in his new Ministerial position, he would not be able to hold both administrative and landed titles. How much the tale is believed depends strictly on how well one knows the Lord of Horn Hill, which is to say most of the Realm knows nothing though many Reacher Lords suspect the truth. Hopefully, by the combined efforts of your mother and Tyene working within the court and Dany working outside it, you can keep the boy's reputation from being too stained by his father's deed, though you have little doubt that he will thank you in the end. It would have been a waste of a brilliant mind to be left rusticating when he could be learning or traveling the world.
There is one other question that naturally arises from the whole affair—how far does abdication go? The law is clear that one cannot hold two posts at once, but can a person ineligible for a position still serve as a vessel for their heirs to hold it? On the one hand, that could lead to some inclination for corruption and divided loyalty as part of a dynasty on the other it is, as Malarys puts it, 'a trifling small bone to toss at the lords and princes', and likely to incline those who would otherwise avoid Imperial Service to take it up.
What do you decide?
[] Allow titles to be transferred to the children of ineligible dynasty members (ex: any future children Randyll Tarly may have)
[] Do not allow any titles to be passed to the children of ineligible dynasty members
OOC: Short bridge update because I need a vote on this. I thought about doing a Samwell interlude in place of this, but that would have come out rather incoherent right now, even he does not know how he feels.