Of the City of Daub, and the Manner of Its Governance

Your Grace will pardon me if I describe what you already govern; I do so not to instruct you in what you know, but because a thing seen from outside is sometimes seen more clearly than from within, and it is in that spirit that I offer these observations.

Daub was not built by intention. The river Sut provided the ground; commerce provided the logic; and every subsequent generation added to what the previous one had started, without ever pausing to agree on what they were building. Little by little, Daub grew.

We may consider this a strength. A city that has grown by necessity has weathered, in its time, many problems; and thus its continued existence is proof that it is hard to destroy. The fact that its outer walls are, by general acknowledgment, insufficient is the one exception I would urge Your Grace to remedy. An army need not fear what a confused flock of sheep could overcome.

Everything else Daub has arrived at by accident, it has arrived at correctly. The resources and industries of Daub are sound: iron, tin, lead, coal, lumber, wool, grain, cattle, coffee, tea — and beyond these, the proximity of the Waste, which provides the Merchants Guild with rare magical vessels and artefacts; combined, Daub exerts leverage disproportionate to its size. Your Grace should take care that this advantage remains in hands that have reason to preserve the city’s independence, and does not drift toward those who would sell it to the highest external bidder.

Of the Balance of Powers Within Daub

The structure Your Grace maintains is, in my estimation, less rigid than is common for a city of this size. Your own seat, at the summit, is maintained by demonstrated competence: records kept, intelligence maintained, a reputation for fairness, and a practical eye for rule.

This foundation has its strengths and its weaknesses. Its strength lies in your own ability; having ascended to this august position, your powers and wit must suffice to outwit enemies. Its weakness is that there are no ties of blood or kin to support Your Grace, and thus you must be ever watchful. Daub is a lucrative prize, and many are those tempted to wait for Your Grace to overcome its most difficult obstacles and snatch the unwrapped present for themselves.

The Charter Knights give Your Grace direct enforcement and act as the most authoritative arm of your justice. The question — and it is always the question — is whether they remain yours, or whether time and circumstance make them someone else’s. A mixed force of reformed militia and imperial infusions serves well in peacetime, when their competing loyalties cancel each other out; however, Your Grace should consider what happens when these balances shift. I say nothing of Your Grace’s own loyal men, but it is worth bearing in mind that resentment, envy, and complaint may arise in any body, and that Your Grace must maintain this blade and not let it rust.

The Merchants Guild of Daub is the most interesting power in the city. Insofar as I can discern they hold no formal office, and though on good terms with the Singhapura Merchants, are indeed their rivals. Though they are mentioned in no bylaw, act or proclamation, their underwriters sit inside every significant transaction; their guards police the roads; their suppliers and wagon trains pass through every district. Political advisors who have treated them as a footnote have been removed. This is precisely the behavior one should expect from a body that has learned to make itself structurally indispensable. Your Grace should neither attempt to destroy this arrangement — it cannot be done without destroying the city’s commercial vitality with it — nor should the Guild be allowed to mistake your accommodation for dependence. The distinction must be made legible, occasionally, by some act that reminds them where Daub’s true power resides.

In this Your Grace has a powerful ally; namely, the Tombulov estates, which hold a monopoly on the production of coffee. Their estates are well-defended; their product and their means to distribute it have spread far and wide across the land, from remote villages unto Singhapura itself. They are perhaps the finest example I have encountered of Daub using such avenues as the Empire provides — roads, networks for messaging, law and accoutrements — to build a new network of power. I urge Your Grace to examine carefully these operations and to learn from them; furthermore, while I do not fathom the precise relationship between Your Grace and Lady Tombulov, the vast number of coffeehouses spread across the land may serve Your Grace as a powerful means of moving messages to and fro, if the Tombulovs should prove amenable.

The battle of faith between the Haugris Church and the Temple of Eighteen is a resource Your Grace is, I suspect, already managing. Two competing faiths exhaust each other’s ambitions on each other, and neither grows powerful enough to threaten the secular authority above them. The Empire’s preference for maintaining this tension is well-reasoned, and Your Grace’s interest runs parallel. The danger is that one side may win.

The Lesser Theoretical University also provides structural leverage of a kind that is difficult to manufacture quickly. As the only serious rival (and near-equivalent ally) to the Taprobane Imperial University, they are the only people in the city capable of certain classes of problem-solving. Institutions with unique technical capacities tend to develop political confidence to match. Your Grace is well-advised to make use of them and to cultivate this relationship; it will not sustain itself indefinitely without attention.

The Paladins are, as Your Grace herself notes, the alternative to a Church monopoly on heavy enforcement. However, I must extend caution here: mixed results are often the expected condition of an institution introduced to check another rather than to accomplish a coherent purpose. The current arrangement — Charter Knights, Paladins, and a heavily armed Merchants Guild, each with their own definition of lawful authority — is stable until it is not. Your Grace should give thought to which of these bodies would act first in a crisis, and portion tasks and oversight accordingly, so that they may continue their work without interfering with your designs.

Of Daub’s Position Within the Empire

It is my reasoned opinion that Daub is not a significant economic contributor to Singhapura. While trade flourishes, Singhapura is not dependent on Daub, but present-day Daub depends to a great degree on the benevolence of the Sinha Adiraj. Nor can it be said to be significant in a military sense.

And yet the arrangement — tribute, nominal deference, and the Empire’s occasional high-handedness — is, if I may make so bold, a softer noose than expected. It may be that the Emperor intends to let Daub flourish and grow as a fruitful vassal on its north-easternmost border; it may also be that the intent is to let the fruit grow ripe enough for the plucking. Your Grace may be well cautioned to observe the Empire’s strategy in its vassal states of Wattle and Tangowan to determine the breadth of actions that the Empire is capable of.

The Singhapura political theorist Rukarya wrote that Daub, lacking tradition to check its genius, is free and therefore dangerous. He meant this as a caution. Freedom of operation is a rare advantage; the danger is only to those who cannot govern themselves within it.

Of the City of Daub, and the Manner of Its Governance

Of the Balance of Powers Within Daub

Of Daub’s Position Within the Empire

Further Reading