Malgareth
Credit is the business, which makes Malgareth a house other houses must account for — a debtor three centuries into an unserviceable loan takes instruction. A second border answers to Malgareth.
Ask Malgareth whose it is and the answer is the ring's. Its humans are a population it administers, which makes the house a reliable party to an agreement and an unmoving one in a quarrel. The tradition is primal: pasture, thin settlement, and law kept by memory. Its adherence to the Accords is the loosest in the ring.
The holding
Coldmire — the counting-yard with nobody to recite to
A palisaded Vaskarni counting-yard on inland peat, one drove track up from the Drusenmark.
Inland from the shingle the Hrimgard March goes over to frozen peat, and the Coldmire palisade stands on it where the drove track down from the Drusenmark meets the tundra grazing. The yard has no ploughland or herd, so oats and reindeer meat are carted across the peat from Slagbeck before frost shuts the road. Inside the wall there is one gate, a weighing floor, a vault and a row of clerks' rooms. The Hrimgard Watch lies two days north-west where the coast road stops, and the Blackwillow yard five days east round the inlet.
Connections
Coldmire has had no living name behind it for eleven years.
Allies takes this house’s side 0
No house on the ring takes this one’s side.
Neutral trades, and no more than that 3
Duskenmoor 06 Malgareth pays for Duskenmoor's cutting season each spring and takes it back out of the autumn raft sales, and sends eight of its own men down as guards. Without that spring money the yard cannot cut at all, so its whole year turns on terms agreed by March.
Tessarel 61 Oats and reindeer meat are carted half a day from Tessarel to feed Malgareth's stockade, weighed on Tessarel's scales and paid on a tally Malgareth cuts itself. The two counts have differed by about one part in forty for as long as the account has run.
Caelithil 74 Malgareth lent four hundred marks in 786 to rebuild Caelithil's shrine stair, repayable out of pilgrim offerings over twenty years. Malgareth has had no living member since, so Caelithil's treasurer now pays an agent whose seal matches nobody.
Enemies has something open against it 3
Faenlorn 01 Faenlorn has been quietly buying Malgareth's debts from anyone who will sell, at a third of what they are worth, and now claims Malgareth's cattle road as security. It holds more of Malgareth's debt than any other house.
Thelanor 30 Thelanor was never paid for carrying 4,000 timber poles, and Malgareth's last member died before it could collect. It has claimed the cattle road instead, arguing that a road the creditor has maintained for nine years belongs to the creditor.
Naskarre 48 Naskarre has stopped reciting its debt to Malgareth at the summer assembly, arguing that a debt must be recited to a living creditor and Malgareth has produced none in eleven years. Malgareth's agents answered in writing, and assembly custom does not count that as an answer.
The full account — 6 houses, 6 arrangements
Coldmire has had no living name behind it for eleven years. Clause I covers nothing inside the palisade, although the yard still lends, weighs and files at the Forge. Its factors advance the Blackwillow yard a cutting season each spring and send eight hired men down the drove track as escort, which Duskenmoor pays for whether it wants them or not. Slagbeck's oats are weighed on Tessarel's stone and settled on a Vaskarni tally the yard cuts itself, the two measures a fortieth apart for as long as the account has run. Naskarre has stopped reciting the debt at the summer assembly, on the argument that a reading aloud wants a living creditor, and the factors answered in writing, which At an assembly is no answer.
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The shrine stair on the Drusenmark's tundra flank was rebuilt in 786 AF on four hundred marks advanced out of Malgareth's counting-yard, repayable from pilgrim offerings over twenty years. Malgareth has had no living name since, and Caelithil's bursar now pays a factor who signs with a seal nobody can match to a person.
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Malgareth advances Duskenmoor's yard its cutting season each spring against the autumn raft price, and sends eight of its own hired men down as escort on the drove track. Duskenmoor pays for the escort whether it wants it or not, which is the yard's standing complaint at the assembly.
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Thelanor holds notes drawn on Malgareth's counting-yard for the carriage of 4,000 alder poles, unpaid since the last Malgareth name was struck from the reading aloud. Thelanor has entered a claim against the drove track instead, on the argument that a road the creditor has maintained for nine years is the creditor's.
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Malgareth's palisade is fed on oats and reindeer meat carted half a day from Tessarel, weighed on its stone and paid for on a Vaskarni tally the yard cuts itself. The two measures have disagreed by about a fortieth for as long as the account has run, and neither house wants to be the one that had it settled.
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Naskarre has stopped reciting Malgareth's debt at the summer assembly, on the argument that a Vaskarni obligation must be formally read to a living creditor and Malgareth has produced none for eleven years. The counting-yard's factors answered in writing, which under assembly practice is no answer.
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Faenlorn's vault has been buying Malgareth paper at something near a third of face from anyone willing to sell it, and files each purchase at the Forge as it goes. Faenlorn's committee has also entered a claim to Malgareth's drove track as security, which Malgareth's factors dispute and Sturmhalt's Watch would sooner not see decided either way.
The Forge has it that somebody still pays the yard's filing fees, and that its factors' instructions come from further off than the March. Said in the Hrimgard March
The public record
- Plate
- 26 of 81
- Seat
- Lowmere
- Holding
- Coldmire
- Region
- the Hrimgard March
- Position
- hex 4,4 in r1c1
- Extent
- a holding and its outfields (2 of 10)
- Culture
- Vaskarne
- Thick on this ground
- Falkvald, Vaskarne
- Iron
- Cold
- Living names
- none
- Roster
- —
- Ancestry
- Human
- Kinship
- Undivided
- Major activity
- Coinvault
- Minor activity
- Marchward
- Tradition
- Primal
- Alignment
- NE
- Stake
- Breaks
- Band
- Rotten plate
- Weights
- 1
Arms
A drowned strongbox lying open on a lake bed with coins spilling into the silt, a leaning boundary post standing in the water above it.
Vert, a key Or; in base a tower Or; a bordure of cold iron. (Plate 26; no living name.)
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.