Halvresk
The frontier pays Halvresk by the season. Escort, watch and convoy cover are all chargeable, and the rates were set when the charters were, so every renewal reopens them. Halvresk discounts bills as a sideline.
Halvresk is Undivided, and its human shape is a working convenience rather than a claim of kinship. The people of Tallgrass are governed rather than represented, and the house says as much when it is asked. Arcane institutions govern here. The house keeps its precedents in order, and its objections at the Forge arrive in writing before they arrive in person.
The holding
the Halvrask Watch — the hired posts on the badlands rim
Turf over hardpan at the badlands rim, hired watch-posts, one Vaskarni street inside the survey
Turf lies thin over hardpan where the Aurelmarch grain floor gives out against the northern badlands, and the Halvrask Watch holds the ground either side of the one gap in that rim. The grass will keep remounts and very little else, so bread comes off the Ferravant Hundred and the rest is bought in the survey's market halls. There is a walled yard, four posts strung along the rim, and one Vaskarni street inside the survey where the assembly sits in the open and answers a summons out of the Corvantine court about eleven days late. Skarveth's ford is three days east and the Nine Wells camps spread below the rim to the south.
Connections
Selling quiet at the rim gap is the Watch's business, and Skarveth pays in oats and ox-hides at the survey valuation; no drift has reached the Ferravant ford since 798 AF, which is the whole of the service.
Allies takes this house’s side 1
Neutral trades, and no more than that 2
Meldrath 55 Meldrath has commissioned eleven of Halvresk's officers since 800, at twenty crowns a head and a season's keep. Ferrovane stopped recognising Meldrath's certificates when the house died out, so the men Halvresk hires are cheap and unemployable anywhere that keeps records.
Skarveth 65 Halvresk keeps four posts on the rim above Skarveth, paid for in oats and ox-hides. Raiders come through the gap twice a year and have not reached the ford since 798.
Enemies has something open against it 2
Meketri 37 Halvresk's hired guards have charged Meketri's drovers a grazing fee since 793, and no record anywhere lists such a charge. Two of Meketri's men were shot at the third well in 808, the incident was written up as a toll dispute, and the wells have been closed to Halvresk's horses ever since.
Valdrenne 71 Halvresk took Valdrenne's bills at nearly full value for twenty years and now takes them at two-thirds. It holds four thousand crowns of them, has nobody it can summon to pay, and has offered the lot to Serathorne at half.
The full account — 5 houses, 5 arrangements
Selling quiet at the rim gap is the Watch's business, and Skarveth pays in oats and ox-hides at the survey valuation; no drift has reached the Ferravant ford since 798 AF, which is the whole of the service. Six hundred quarters of wheat come from the Ferravant Hundred receivership each year under a contract sealed in 141 AF by a house six centuries gone, and both accounts are lodged at Bellmark annually. The Coinvault side took Barleystaith bills at ninety-six for twenty years, holds four thousand crowns of them with nobody left to summon, and has offered the lot to Serathorne at fifty. The grass fee off Meketri's drovers has been collected since 793 AF and appears in no census; the two men shot at the third well in 808 AF went into the book as a toll dispute.
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Halvresk keeps four posts on the badlands rim above Skarveth, which pays for them in oats and ox-hides at the survey valuation. The drifts come through the rim gap twice a year and have not reached the ford since 798 AF, which is the whole of what Halvresk is selling.
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Halvresk's hired watch has collected a grass fee off the Nine Wells drovers since 793 AF and the census records no such charge. Two of Meketri's men were shot at the third well in 808 AF, the Watch entered it as a toll dispute, and the wells have been closed to Halvrask remounts ever since.
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The Watch's Coinvault side rediscounted Valdrenne bills at ninety-six for twenty years and now takes them at sixty-eight. Halvresk holds four thousand crowns of them, cannot summon a name to pay, and has offered the lot to Serathorne at fifty.
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Six hundred quarters of Farrowgate wheat go to Halvresk's every year under a victualling contract executed in 141 AF and still running on that seal, the house that sealed it having not existed for six centuries. The receivership delivers, Halvresk patrols the Hundred's road, and both sides lodge the same account at Ferrovane annually to keep the arrangement on the record.
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Meldrath's drill field commissions the Watch's officers, eleven of them since 800 AF, at twenty crowns a head and a season's keep. Ferrovane stopped accepting Meldrath certificates for court clerkships when the Meldrath plate went cold, so the men Halvresk hires are now cheap and unemployable anywhere with a records office.
Bellmark clerks price a Halvrask patrol contract as though the Watch could field more riders than the survey has quarters for. Said in the Aurelmarch
The public record
- Plate
- 47 of 81
- Seat
- Tallgrass
- Holding
- the Halvrask Watch
- Region
- the Aurelmarch
- Position
- hex 5,13 in r4c2
- Extent
- one of the larger marches in the ring (7 of 10)
- Culture
- Vaskarne
- Thick on this ground
- Corvantine, Vaskarne
- Iron
- Warm
- Living names
- 5
- Roster
- Small
- Ancestry
- Human
- Kinship
- Undivided
- Major activity
- Marchward
- Minor activity
- Coinvault
- Tradition
- Arcane
- Alignment
- CN
- Stake
- Breaks
- Band
- Minor
- Weights
- 2
Arms
A frontier watch-post half swallowed by tall grass, a purse hanging from its ladder, one small iron ring slipped over the post's spike.
Azure, a tower Or; in base a key Or; differenced by an annulet in dexter base; a bordure of warm iron. (Plate 47; five 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.