Sorrenmark
Sorrenmark keeps soldiers — real ones, with an officer corps and siege trains, since two centuries of dragons declining to fight has left mortal armies to do all of it. Sorrenmark also keeps a school.
Sorrenmark is Undivided. It wears human shape because a Wright at the Forge must wear something, and it treats an appeal to common blood as a category error. Its institutions are arcane: literate, incremental, and content to win an argument in the thirtieth year of it. The treaty is an instrument to them, to be read closely and used. The house also carries A primal establishment, of long standing and no goodwill toward the arcane side. Both are indispensable, so neither has been suppressed.
The holding
the Coltfold — the house that closes the road fork
Rye on thin plain soil above the Solmarch, remount pastures, legion camp at the road fork
The Coltfold lies above the Solmarch on thin soil at the northern edge of the Aurelmarch grain floor, where rye does well and wheat is not worth the seed. Much of the holding is remount pasture instead, grazed short by cavalry horses and shut to cattle from April. The paved river road and the oxen road out of the north-eastern foothills meet at a fork here, milestoned by the survey, and the legion camp stands in the angle behind ditch and turf bank. Bellmark's barge head is four days upriver, the Aurel Wood ditch just east of the rye, and Pardahni's cattle pens hold the red gravel north.
Connections
Rye, remounts and hired soldiers pay for the Coltfold.
Allies takes this house’s side 3
Brakkenstone 08 Sorrenmark's army camp buys forty tons of iron a year from Brakkenstone at the army rate, which is below market. Brakkenstone treats the loss as the price of never having soldiers billeted on its charcoal roads.
Sarventhal 69 Sarventhal trains Sorrenmark's engineers on its cisterns for a season each, at 800 silver a season and a full survey of the north road every fifth year. The survey is worth more than the money.
Vaddrek 81 Sorrenmark's soldiers patrol the road down from Vaddrek's ironworks, and Vaddrek pays two hundred quarters of oats a season for it. A dwarf hold hiring human soldiers is remarked on at both ends of the road, and both houses would rather be talked about than lose the ironworks to raiders.
Neutral trades, and no more than that 2
Gundvarr 44 Sorrenmark's camp protects Gundvarr's granary, and Gundvarr pays in 1,200 hundredweight of oats rather than coin. Gundvarr keeps no soldiers of its own.
Aldemarch 53 Nine hundred quarters of rye go down the river to Aldemarch's garrison each year, priced at a distant market rather than by either house. Aldemarch's granary holds eighteen months' supply.
Enemies has something open against it 2
Pardahni 22 Pardahni's stock pens stand on Sorrenmark's horse pasture at a rent raised every year since 806, and Pardahni pays because there is no other watered ground for days in any direction. Since the last raise Sorrenmark has been seizing stray cattle, Pardahni's men have twice cut the fence, and Ferrovane is sitting on a complaint from each side.
Meldrath 55 Sorrenmark's camp sits on the road fork and closes it to Meldrath's traffic for eleven days at each spring and autumn muster. Meldrath's convoys go the long way round and pay Vaddrek for the privilege.
The full account — 7 houses, 8 arrangements
Rye, remounts and hired soldiers pay for the Coltfold. Twelve of the house hold commissions in the camp, and what the legion does between musters is sold: patrols along Vaddrek's oxen road at two hundred quarters of oats a season, cover for Gundvarr's granary terrace at twelve hundred hundredweight of the same, and nine hundred quarters of rye down the Solmarch each year to Aldemarch's garrison at the Bellmark price. Brakkenstone lands forty tons of bar iron at the fork at the legion rate and treats the discount as the cost of nobody quartering on its charcoal roads. The Pardahni lease has gone up every spring since 806, and since 812 the camp has impounded any beast found off it, holding that ground without boundary stones has no boundary. Two fences have been cut and Bellmark has heard neither action. Sorrenmark also governs Fetchfield on the Coltfold’s rye plain. Its officials sell places in the queue for the city’s ancient transport stones, and scholars at its school study when the stones become active.
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Sorrenmark's camp at the road fork covers Gundvarr, which pays for the cover in 1,200 hundredweight of oats delivered to the remount pastures rather than in coin. The granary would rather have its own men on the terrace and cannot get the survey to license a wall longer than the compound it already has.
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Sorrenmark's camp patrols the oxen road down from Ironfurrow and Vaddrek pays two hundred quarters of oats a season for it. A Kazdrunn hold buying Corvantine soldiers is remarked on at both ends of the road, and both houses would rather be remarked on than lose the iron furnace to the drifts off the badlands.
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Pardahni's caravan stage and cattle pens stand on Sorrenmark remount pasture under a rent renewed each spring. Sorrenmark has raised it in every year since 806 AF and Pardahni has paid every time, there being no other watered ground between the badlands and the barge head.
After the 812 AF raise Sorrenmark began impounding Pardahni cattle found off the leased ground, arguing that where there are no boundary stones there is no boundary. Pardahni's escorts have twice cut the impound fence, and Ferrovane holds an action from each side and has heard neither.
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Sorrenmark's legion camp sits on the road fork and closes it to Meldrath traffic during the spring and autumn musters, eleven days each time. Meldrath's convoys go round by the Ironfurrow oxen road and pay Vaddrek for the privilege, which is the only part of the quarrel that has made anybody money.
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Nine hundred quarters of rye come down the Solmarch from Sorrenmark's each year for the garrison, at a price set in Ferrovane's market and not at either gate. The Ward's granary is built to hold eighteen months and its officers mention the figure whenever the price is discussed.
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Sorrenmark's camp takes forty tons of bar iron and eight hundredweight of shoe stock a year off Brakkenstone, delivered to the road fork and billed at the legion rate, which is under the market. Brakkenstone treats the difference as the price of nobody quartering on its charcoal roads.
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Cistern Nineteen takes Sorrenmark' engineer cadets for a season each on the canyon cisterns, and Sorrenmark pays 800 silver a season and a legion survey of the north road every fifth year. The survey is the larger half of the fee and appears in the Corvantine accounts as road maintenance.
Officers at Bellmark say the Coltfold winters more remounts than its rate return accounts for, and that no assessor has yet asked to see the pastures in March. Said in the Aurelmarch
The public record
- Plate
- 14 of 81
- Seat
- Rye Marches
- Holding
- the Coltfold
- Region
- the Aurelmarch
- Position
- hex 9,16 in r4c3
- Extent
- as much ground as Clause II allows (8 of 10)
- Culture
- Corvantine
- Thick on this ground
- Corvantine, Sekhemri
- Iron
- Warm
- Living names
- 12
- Roster
- Established
- Ancestry
- Human
- Kinship
- Undivided
- Major activity
- Warhost
- Minor activity
- Lorehall
- Tradition
- Arcane, with Primal in tension
- Alignment
- CE
- Stake
- Even
- Band
- Great
- Weights
- 4
Arms
A furled war-banner wrapped tightly around a scholar's brass scroll-case, the two bound together by one black mourning ribbon, crossed rye stalks below.
Azure, two spears in saltire Or; in base a book open Or; a chief Vert; a bordure of warm iron. (Plate 14; twelve living names.)
The field colour is the house's tradition and the bound edge is the state of its plate, and neither is the house's to choose.