The Place of the Keepers

There will be more to come on alignment, but I was chided, or chastised (is there a difference?) for not putting up more Northumberland Yoon-Suin stuff, so here is something for the peanut gallery:

The Place of the Keepers

Where the mouth of the Border Water spills out into the sea stands an ancient burgh with mighty walls made of pinkish-gold granite. It has stood at least since the Emperor made it, as a place to station His fleet. Since he disappeared a long line of men have “kept” it, and his ships - under what they claim was His final command and deriving the status from His ultimate authority.

Whether there was originally intended to be just one Keeper or many is a point of historical and legal debate. Whatever the truth of the matter, the number of Keepers has grown inexorably over time due to a custom instituted long ago. When a Keeper dies, a new one is elected by the burghers from among their number to replace him. The previous Keeper is then interred in a barrow to the south of the burgh, whereupon spells are cast by the Vestals, a caste of priestly witches, in order to retain his wisdom and vitality for the furtherance of the task the Emperor gave him. He thus remains in his dark barrow as a wight, and is periodically exhumed and brought back to the burgh to give advice when required.

As a result of this practice, there are now many dozens of Keepers, one of whom is alive - for the time being - but the rest of whom are dead. Whenever the living Keeper is called upon to do or decide anything, he is required to consult all of the others, who are accordingly exhumed with great ceremony and brought into the burgh to speak and cast a vote. This is partly as a result of custom, but mostly as a result of political prudence. Each dead Keeper generally retains the loyalty of his household, followers and descendants after death; these people cling on to the status and privileges which accrued to them when “their” Keeper was alive, and form an ongoing power bloc within the burgh ever after. The result of this is that the current living Keeper is faced with great pressure to accommodate the views of the dead ones in order to placate potential sources of civil strife.

Another result of this is that governance of the burgh grows ever more fractious over time, because with each dead Keeper there are new vested interests jostling for influence. Some powerful families have three, four or even five dead Keepers in their ancestry. The exert great pressure on the living Keeper as a result. Their rivals compete vigorously to have their sons elected Keeper so that they can expand their voice and maintain it through the generations. The burgh is riven with plots, counter-plots, assassinations and fluctuating alliances - and the streets and alleyways and taverns are forever filled with whispered rumours about goings-on among the burghers; for the common people, the shenanigans of the great and good are more interesting than any sport.

The burgh still harbours a war fleet, nominally owned by the Emperor and awaiting the return of imperial rule. These old ships - sleek, oared things built for ramming - are meticulously repaired and maintained, though of course over time they have grown fewer, and the ones that remain inevitably show their great age in the vast encrustations of barnacles on their hulls and in their constantly expanding patchworks of repairs. Each ship by convention is given only a number and not a name, but they are treated as demigods or saints by the inhabitants of the burgh, who recite tales and legends (whether fanciful or true, none can say) about them from their many centuries of service, and insist that their captains and crews know them to be sentient - capable of communicating strange needs and desires through the dreams of those on board, and able at times to control the winds so as to avoid danger or change course to some unknown place. Each ship has its cult, whose members offer it prayer and sacrifice, and ask it to intercede on their behalf with the forgotten imperial gods - or even the soul of the Emperor Himself - whenever they are anxious, joyous, or otherwise in need of blessings. Whenever a ship of the fleet leaves the harbour, the words goes out ("The IVth is on its way"; "Is that the XIXth? The repairs must have been finished") and the members of that particular cult flock to the quayside to throw flowers, shower it with ale, or dive into the water to swim alongside it. In those moments of passion and excitement in the morning sun, it is easy for the participants to forget that the fleet has had no apparent purpose for many generations, and the voyages of its ships are as lacking in wider meaning as the blowing of the wind or the falling of the rain.