A Perilous Flame
First Day of the Second Month 294 AC
Some would say a king is free to judge any case brought before him as he sees fit. Indeed, the letter of the law you have laid would seem to favor that view. You can set precedent and overthrow the decision of the courts, you can have any exception that comes to mind signed into law by this evening...but you will not, no matter how much you might sympathize with the petitioner in this matter. The law exists for a reason, the precedents of Volantis well discarded given all the tangles they might make, designed as they were to support a system fundamentally at odds with that of the empire you are founding. The law binds you no less tightly in this decision than it did the judges of the lower courts.
"While I regret such irresponsible behavior on the part of magister Careous, it is not the business of the state to enforce sound judgement or familial obligation beyond what has already been decided here," you proclaim in closing.
The young mage's face is stone as he bows in parting, courtesies cold and cutting upon his lips.
It looks as though you have made an enemy today. A daring thing perhaps, but you have avowed yourself an enemy of gods when you were less powerful than Malar Laeraleos is now. The dragon blood breeds wrath and ambition in equal measure.
You hold back a sigh and motion for the next case, an elderly man in the green-dyed woolens of a yeoman farmer from the east. More whispers follow in his wake than had done for fey spirits of genie emissaries.
"Hail and well met, goodman," you greet him politely with just enough firmness behind the words that the whispers cut off utterly. "What cause have you to bring before the throne today."
The man doffs his hat and bows, hands tightening on the stack of parchments he is carrying as though he is afraid they will suddenly vanish from his grip. "Well now, Your Excellence, I'm Lorn Longleg and I'm here to call out some trouble with the er... Inquisition."
If the room had been quiet before you could practically count every person in the room by the sounds of their heartbeats now. "Continue."
"It all started with this crazy bastard my youngest daughter brought home..." the old man sighs. The story is quite straightforward. His goodson had been a worshiper of the Horseman of Famine, his guilt is not under any debate nor the actions of the inquisition in killing him before he could enact a summonsing to poison the harvest rituals for leagues around. In fact Lorn had been the one who had signaled 'strange goings on' to the local legion post.
The true root of the issue is that in the process of dealing with the cultists the inquisition troopers had made use of battle magics, fire to be exact. Lorn's home had burned to the ground leaving him in debt to the local bank and, according to him, unable to bring in the harvest because of the public stigma of having unknowingly harbored cultists. He tried to obtain some reparations from the inquisition but the commissar for Myr had told him the troopers were acting within their mandate and he should be happy he kept his soul given how close he came to perdition.
"Souls are good to have, Excellence, but I ain't no fiend. I don't
eat souls. If I sell the land I won't have anything but the clothes on my back," Lorn ends his sometimes meandering but passionate argument.
What do you judge?
[] That the inquisition should pay reparations for damaged property during the enactment of their duties (costs usually small but can increase dramatically in case of stopping a major incursion)
[] Uphold the decision of the previous courts, the risks to lives and souls are too great to further burned the agents of the inquisition with thoughts of how much they might cost the budget
[] Write in
OOC: A bit more of a glimpse into those minor issues that usually get abstracted away, visible this time because there is a policy decision to be made. Not yet edited.
