Death After Death PLUS 318-320

Ch. 318 - Someplace New

The road continued, and four days after they left Ifrin’s Crossing, they reached the foothills that marked the true borders of this Kingdom. Charia and Brin might end and begin at the river they’d crossed so recently, but the culture didn’t change noticeably until they reached the first mountain village. Then Simon saw that they were built like little fortresses. 

All of them kept a fire that was usually fueled by wood or dung burning throughout the night and had heavy shutters and doors on all the buildings, along with barns for storing herds. Some went further than that, building their homes next to each other in large rings with all the doors facing inward like some kind of flimsy fort. Many used cliffs and natural defensive structures. 

Simon hadn’t noticed such arrangements during his time in Freya’s valley, but according to Eddek, one only saw arrangements like this in the highlands. “Lowlanders are indistinguishable from foreigners in some ways,” he told Simon. “In the northern valley, which conditions are safer, people spread out, but up here… every night may be your last.”

That wasn’t their only strange feature that Simon needed Eddek to explain to him. Every one of the villages they passed wasn’t even a village in the strictest sense. It was a clanhold, and everyone who lived there shared a surname, and most matters were decided communally. 

“That’s why you call me Eddek,” he explained. “If I was among my kin, they might call me Eddek Farel, Eddek Branson, or even just Erben, which is sort of like… heir to the Hold.”

All of that made sense, but Simon had never really thought about it or even asked about it, which showed just how little time he’d spent here in any of his lives. The clanholds were deeply suspicious of Simon in almost every interaction. 

In fact, they viewed him with such suspicion that part of Simon wondered if he would have been simply rejected outright if he’d come through the region with a dark aura. There was no way to know for sure that any of them could see it, of course, but the way that some old women stared at him made him sure that they did. Trying to trade with them using foreign coins was a miserable experience, but Eddek was mostly able to sort things out there. 

He wasn’t much in the wilderness and could get sullen on the trail sometimes, especially as food ran low. In town, bartering with his own people, he seemed much more at home. Once he explained the tragedy that befell their caravan, though, people opened their doors wide for the group. Outsider or not, the rules about hospitality in such cases were quite clear. 

News was offered nearly as freely as food after that, which was how they found out they weren’t too late for the festival that had inspired this whole journey in the first place. “It’s not really a festival,” Eddek clarified after he found out. “I just told you that because you don’t really understand our ways. It's a moot, and I’ll be attending for clan Eddek.”

“A moot?” Simon asked as he tried to clarify the way these facts fit in his head with other lives. If these two had died on the road, then they never would have come, and if they’d waited at the miller’s for someone to come looking for them, they would have reached their destination far too late. So, whatever happened next, they’d be changing history, though for the worse or the better, he couldn’t say. 

“Yeah, they’re held in the capital every year, and if the clan leaders want a say in what the King does, they can come and vote on some things,” he said. “There will still be drinking and dancing and all the rest, especially after it’s over. I’ve been to them before. This is just my first time coming alone.”

“Alright…” Simon answered, feeling like he was missing some important information here. “So why isn’t your father here this time? Aren’t you a little young to be here on your own?”

“A clan’s Erben can attend on behalf of his father,” Eddek said, sounding a little hurt by Simon’s words. “He’s told me what to vote for and what to vote against. In all things not discussed, I am to vote with Clan Grelden, our closest ally. It’s simple.”

“Yeah, but—” Simon tried to drive the point home, but Kayla interrupted him.

“My master is coming on his own because he will be staying here for the foreseeable future,” she said. “He’s going to be educated by the fine Miesters of the city.”

“Well, yeah, obviously,” not realizing he hadn’t bothered to explain that to Simon until now. “Father will be along next year, and without my funds or my manservants, it will be harder, but I’ll manage.”

Simon spent most of that evening drawing more details out of Eddek to make sure there wasn’t anything else he hadn’t left out up until now, but there didn’t seem to be. Still, the boy had all the time in the world to tell him these things in this life and more time to tell him some part of it in past lives, which made Simon leery of trusting the idea of putting him in any position of real responsibility. 

Either his dad is way more confident in this situation than he ever should be, or I’m not being told everything, Simon told himself.  

From that night on, they no longer camped in the wild. It was too dangerous, according to the locals, and they moved only as far as they could from one village to the next on any given day as they made their way to Adonan. Even with all those precautions, though, they still had to deal with a pack of mangy beastmen three days outside the capital.

There were only four of them, and Eddek did as he was instructed and protected their mule and his serving girl, but all he had to do was stand there with his sword. Simon dispatched the rest of them, earning himself only a shallow gouge from one of their horns as he narrowly dodged a charge. His leather armor stopped the worst of it, but even so, he had to waste good whisky from their supplies to make sure it didn’t get infected. 

Kayla helped him with that when they reached the next town. She bandaged it, too, which felt very strange to Simon. It was the first time in a very long time that he was letting something heal the natural way instead of just closing it up with magic, and he was unsurprised that he didn’t like the feeling. 

Still, neither the attack nor the worsening weather stopped them from reaching the capital. It was smaller than he remembered. It wasn’t quite as cramped as the other clan holds he’d seen, but now that their design was a familiar sight, he could see their DNA in the layout of this place. 

The heart of the city was surrounded by an old city wall that looked like it meant business. It couldn’t have contrasted more with the edge of the city, which was surrounded by a much smaller one that showed how much less the inhabitants had become of their surroundings over the intervening decades or centuries. 

Most of the large buildings were built from gray stone, and the smaller ones were made from yellow brick. The roofs were dominated by dark slate, making the whole thing look like an armed camp, and that wasn’t softened by the sprawling castle that dominated the center of the city. 

Today, it stood like a quiet giant, but if Simon didn’t do anything, then one day in the future, it would become the site of a violent massacre that was caused, or at least coordinated, by Kayla and Simon had trouble unseeing that. It wasn't until Eddek pointed out that the colorful banners indicated which clan head was staying where for the moot that he was able to shake himself free of those screams and half-remembered flames.  

While Simon was quite sure that he’d never seen the wider city before, it was just familiar enough that he searched the nearby hills looking for the cabin that he was pretty sure he’d fought the werewolf near, but he didn’t see it. Who knows, he thought with a shrug as they approached the main gate. 

There, Eddek’s presence counted far less than it had at the smaller clanholds and did nothing to fend off a particularly vigorous inspection by the guards. They went through everything that Simon had on him, but fortunately, nothing screamed, ‘I’m a warlock, please kill me!’ In the end, they seemed far more suspicious about his fat purse of silver than about any of the magical equipment he had on him. 

That was ironic, considering he’d looked pretty shady in some lives, but the most he usually merited was a terse warning, like, ‘Just so you know, you draw that thing in this town, and it will cost you your life.’

Here, though, they went through all of their things and asked Simon, in particular, plenty of questions. Who was he really? Where did he get the money? Why did he bother to travel so far out of his way? Why bother to risk his life at all for strangers? 

Simon tried to pay the good guy at first and told them the truth, but when they weren’t buying it, he decided that being a little mercenary was in order. “Alright, you caught me,” he admitted. “Saving the heir to a whole clan? That’s gotta be worth some real money to the Eddeks, right? I’m just sticking around until I can get paid for my efforts.”

Kayla’s eyes bulged at that admission, but Eddek, at least for all of his other faults, caught on immediately. “Why shouldn’t he get paid?” the young man asked. “When my household guard was cut down, he saved our lives. It's a fair bargain all around.”

“Be that as it may,” the guard agreed, “Does he really have to come into the city?” 

“There’s no rule against foreigners coming into Adonan,” Eddek said back, sounding almost confident beneath the guard’s scrutiny. 

“Yes, but during the Moot, we’re supposed to—” the guard answered. 

“I know my rights,” Eddek declared. “I am Eddek Farel, Erben of my clan, and as representative for house Eddek, I can bring whoever I want as part of my entourage. I have no plans to leave behind my last and only bodyguard, regardless of where he might come from.”

“Fine,” the guard growled. “As soon as we’ve sent for someone who can verify your identity. Who shall we call.”

“Karl Grelden,” Eddek answered. “He’ll vouch for me.”

The guard paled at the mention of a Karl, which was the title for their clan leaders, but he nodded and sent a man to do just that.

Yes, Simon decided as he watched all of this play out. There are definitely bigger things at play here than I’ll be able to see as an outsider. I’ve got a lot to learn. 

Ch. 319 - End of the Road

They waited almost an hour for someone as important as Karl Grelden to show up, but Eddek assured Simon that was quite normal. “He probably hasn’t even received the messenger yet,” the boy explained in hushed tones as they sat under a tree just outside the gate while Lizzie grazed nearby. 

“All will be well,” Kayla agreed. “Just one more thing, and then perhaps I can get a proper bath and a hot meal.”

Simon wouldn’t begrudge her either, of course. He’d buy her some new clothes, too, to replace the ones that had been ruined by her own lifeblood, but all that could only come after they were let inside. 

After interacting with the hard eyes of clanholds all the way here, Simon wasn’t really surprised by the guard’s suspicion. He was just impatient. 

He was sure that he would have faced all that and more during his time in Zurari if he hadn’t used a word of flesh to give him the appearance of a Murani native. Even as welcome as Ionia could be, as a nation, it was more than a little xenophobic, too. Still, somehow, Charia topped them all in his mind, annoyed as he waited at the finish line. 

When the big man himself arrived, it was with a whole entourage. The man had four bodyguards, a herald, and several other people whose purpose Simon could not immediately discern. As he did so, he made a big deal about Eddek while he all but ignored Simon and Kayla. Though they were let inside to accompany the boy, it was clear that Simon was being afforded similar courtesies to the maidservant rather than a citizen or a warrior. 

Even when he thanked Simon and offered him a handshake, it was a perfunctory thing. The welcome that accompanied it was without enthusiasm, and the man said, “You’re welcome to dine with us, but any rewards, well, I’ll leave that up to the boy’s father if you stick around that long.” 

Simon didn’t care about the money, but he still found it hard to keep a straight face when he thanked the man. As unenthusiastic as that was, though his words to Kayla stung worse. 

When the Karl looked at Kayla’s wounds and said, “Aye, a near thing, but I’ll have my healer look at you and see if she can yet undo some of the foreigner's butchery. You might have grown into a very pretty woman before all of this.”

Simon held his tongue, but only just as he watched the girl’s smile fade. I’m definitely going to have to do something about that, he told himself, pushing dress shopping up a couple places on his list, though. 

Before he could worry about that, though, first he had to follow the man into the city, which, while not overcrowded, certainly felt that way as the Karl’s procession of guards and guests drew a crowd.  Once inside, Simon could see in even greater detail how the place resembled the clanholds as each district wrapped around itself like a wall within a wall, and even larger places did the same.

While such arrangements were prudent in the mountains, they bordered on the paranoid here. Simon could certainly see no obvious signs of treachery or thievery, but lines of blood ran deep all through the place. 

It was only when they reached the Karl’s hall that they found the enthusiasm their introductions at the gate had lacked. There, what started as a simple lunch of bread and sliced meat quickly became rowdy as the men of his clan were much more interested in the boy’s rescue, and once the drinking started, they tried to pry more details out of Simon. While he was tempted to take all the credit for two kills, he knew that was the wrong move. 

Bragging would not be the way to win these people, and after the way they’d treated Kayla, he wasn’t even sure that he wanted to. Instead, he didn’t even take all of the credit for the only owlbear they knew of and left out the second one entirely.

“Well, you see, I was only able to take it down with a sword because it was distracted trying to chew its way inside the wagon to get to the kids,” Simon told them after he finished building it up to be a giant, nine-foot-tall gore-covered monstrosity.

While that part had been almost true, once he finished that part, he left the truth well behind and twisted the story entirely. “I might have killed it, of course, but it was Eddek that bloodied the thing first,” he shared, giving Eddek a hard look not to contradict him. “Even after the thing laid waste to most of his household, once it clawed his maidservant, he found the short sword you see on him now and speared the thing right through the eye!”

That brought roars of approval and a number of cheers. The best Eddek himself managed to contribute to the story was, “I… I did what I could,” but no one cared about that. After that, it was all celebrations for hours, and dinner only redoubled them as more of clan Grelden came back, and the story had to be told all over again. 

This was the closest the prickly warriors ever got to opening up to Simon, and as soon as they went to bed that night and slept it off, it was like it never even happened. Well, at least as far as Simon was concerned. For Eddek, their respect and deference were more long-lasting. Simon appreciated that at least, and once he decided the boy was in good company, he took the girl and made himself scarce. 

“But I have chores to do,” she protested. 

“The servants of that clan have chores they’d like you to do,” Simon corrected, “But you serve Eddek, do you not? He would not wish to be seen with you in bloody rags.”

“I don’t think anyone would wish to be seen with me,” she said half to herself as she bemoaned her condition. 

“Nonsense,” Simon said. “You’re a beautiful girl, and you’ll grow into a stunning young woman in a few years. Don’t listen to that, Karl. He has no idea what he’s talking about.”

“It would be easy if he were the only one,” she said as they walked through the streets, “But the other girls and the house matron… well, they weren’t kind.”

“Then the sooner we put their hospitality behind us, the better,” Simon agreed as they approached a street dominated by tailors. 

“Behind?” she asked. “But where would we go?”

“Doesn’t clan Eddek have property here?” Simon countered. “Surely there was more of a plan than just travel all this way and stay with your allies for a couple of years.”

“They do, and there was,” she agreed, “But it’s complicated… running a household takes coin and people. With only one servant and half a guard, no offense… It would look very strange. There’s no way I could cook his meals and clean his clothes if I was the only one taking care of him!”

“Well, after we find you something new to wear, you can show me Eddek’s hall,” Simon said. “Then we can decide what to do about it.”

Simon tried three tailors before he found one that seemed to love his coin purse more than resent his presence. There, while he showed Kayla various fabrics and cuts and planned a wardrobe to replace the one she’d lost, Simon contemplated how much these two had suffered even after their rescue. 

Presumably, they’d never made it to the city for this moot, of course, but once their Karl’s forces found them with the miller, they would have come the same way and been subjected to the same calumny that they were now. Maybe Kayla would have been treated better without facial scars, but he didn’t get the feeling that any women were treated well here.  

Eddek, though, Simon could see years of bullying in that kid's future. Without a family here, he was just important enough for more established figures to bother with and just malleable enough to mold or bully into doing whatever others wanted. 

Simon could no longer recall Kayla’s exact words of warning about what the nobles had done to the boy on the eve of her massacre, but he still had the impression, even after all these years, that it was undeservedly cruel.

They were there for almost two hours, and in the end, Simon actually paid the man with a gold coin because the bill was so high, but he didn’t really care. It was worth it to see Kayla smile. The tailor tried to chisel Simon, even then arguing, “Foreign gold isn’t worth half as much as good silver pengs,” insisting he owed him no change.  

Simon wasn’t falling for it, though. He simply took the coin back and said, that’s fine. We’ll just shop somewhere else. Sorry for wasting your time. The man tried to bluff and said nothing until Simon reached the door with a very confused Kayla, but he shouted, “Wait!”

After that, there was an intense round of haggling, with more than a few insults on both sides, but eventually, Simon got what he considered was a fair deal, more or less. After all that, though, he made the man write out exactly what it was they’d purchased, in colors, materials, and sizes, and sign it. 

“I don’t care if you try to cheat me,” he explained softly enough that Kayla couldn’t hear. “But if you screw this up and upset her? I’ll burn your whole shop. I’ll do it, too. I’m a lowlander, and we’re nothing but savages.”

The tailor’s expression had soured completely by this point, but Simon didn’t care. If the man did anything to ruin his gift to the servant girl, there would be hell to pay. For her part, she probably caught most of the unpleasantness but chose to ignore it as they left the shop. Instead, she practically floated all the way to Eddek’s small hall as she thanked him for his generosity. 

“I just don't see why you’re doing it, though,” she said when it finally came time to offer a note of complaint, “I doubt Karl Eddek will reimburse you.”

“You and your master have been through a lot,” Simon said as he approached the door and looked for the best way to pry the boards that sealed it free. “I’m just trying to balance the scales. I can make money whenever I want. That’s not so hard.”

“I wish I could,” she complained as he used his dagger to work the wood free. “But we can’t all be so lucky.”

Simon tried to explain that everyone makes their own luck but ended up with a lecture on Charian gender roles. Apparently, women weren’t allowed to be warriors here any more than they were in Ionia. That didn’t surprise Simon, but it did sadden him. 

Still, even as he processed all that and decided what, if anything, he could do about it, he got the door open and was completely unprepared for what he found. The place was a mess. Not only did it look like it hadn’t been swept in a decade, but half the furniture was broken or toppled over. 

“Well, we got our work cut out for us, don’t we?” Simon sighed.

Ch. 320 - A Moot Point

That first day they didn’t do more than assess the damage as they walked through the building; it wasn’t even half the size of the Grelden Clanhall. Simon very much doubted that anyone had been in here except perhaps to look for something to steal for at least a year.

As their tour went on, the pretty young serving girl appeared more and more nervous, and by the time they reached the end, she finally confessed. “The real reason that Karl Eddek isn’t here is because the clan has fallen on hard times,” she said. “That’s why I said they wouldn't pay you back for all of those lovely dresses.” 

“And you didn’t tell me before because you thought I’d leave you there in the wilderness if there was no reward?” Simon asked, withholding a laugh. “Man, you must really think poorly of lowlanders. Who would leave kids in the middle of nowhere just because there wasn’t a payday in it for them?”

“I mean, I didn’t think you would, but how was I to know?” she answered, obviously not sure what to think. 

Simon wasn’t too hard on her, and instead of berating her for what she’d done, he sympathized and asked more probing questions. Those at least explained at least part of Eddek’s reluctance to provide details. He was here because his father couldn’t afford to come. 

Between a bad harvest, a molding granary, and a series of worsening goblin attacks, they were in a bad place. So, he’d left this to his son to handle since it was more or less perfunctory most years. 

“Well, if you guys would have explained this to me all the first night, I might have done things differently,” Simon said finally when her story was done. “But I certainly wouldn’t have left you there to fend for yourself.”

“What would you have done differently?” Kayla asked. 

“I would have taken you home instead of bringing you here,” Simon answered curtly. “I would have taken you home, handled your land’s goblin problem, and maybe a few other things besides.”

As much as he’d wanted to explore this city, it was the truth. He’d considered it because he knew something of what the future held for them, but he definitely could have done more good for both his temporary wards and their people by taking them home instead of dealing with the social ostracization and complications that seemed to be everywhere in the capital.

That point was only further hammered home when Simon found out that Karl Grelden’s men were trying to pressure Eddek into leaving Simon behind and taking one of them to the moot instead. After that, it required an act of will not to crack some skulls. 

At this point in his many lives, Simon considered himself to be well-balanced. He wasn’t quite enlightened yet, or anything, and the instances with which he possessed that true Zen-like clarity that the Oracle and her priests usually had were rare enough, but the way they were obviously trying to railroad this kid into making some bad decisions, well, he hadn’t been this angry in lifetimes.

“Eddek wants me because he wants the best,” Simon said, matter of factly, squaring up against the man who was trying to convince the boy to take someone else instead. “Got a problem with that?”

“I’ve got a problem with you,” the man spat, taking half a step closer and glaring at Simon. “You lowlanders are all the same. Trying to worm your way into situations that don’t concern you.”

“Well, I didn’t see you there when I was busy saving his life,” Simon responded, willing the man to take the first swing. He was a little bigger than Simon, and there was no doubt he could fight, but he was too angry for any more reasonable options. 

Eddek begged them to stop, but both of them ignored him. Instead, it was a guard with a spear in hand that stopped the fight. That should have scared Simon more than it did, but he wasn’t really afraid of spears anymore.

Afterward, he and Eddek chatted. The boy insisted that Simon was coming with him, and Simon explained everything he’d figured out about his clan’s situation after examining their hall. “It's a miserable situation,” the boy agreed, “which is why we need to stay on their good side.”

“Allies that try to press you when you’re down are not allies,” Simon countered. He wasn’t sure how much of this was ill will and how much of it was just cultural differences, but there was definitely a bit of both going on.  

“Even so, what am I supposed to do?” Eddek asked. 

“What else? Do your duty for your clan,” Simon said with a smile. 

It was true that he didn’t need to involve himself in any of this, but there was something else that was true, and that was that level twenty-two was still accessible to the mirror. While he’d solved this level, he hadn’t done enough to prevent some kind of ugly future yet, and there was no reason for him to leave until he’d done that much. 

So, before dinner, Simon explained his plan and that when the moot was done before the boy’s school started, they’d be moving into his clan’s holdings. The boy insisted they couldn’t bear such expenses, but Simon brushed him off. 

“We’ll hire a cook maybe and a stable boy, but we’ll get along just fine,” Simon assured him. “Money is not an issue.”

After that, all Simon had to do was avoid picking any fights over the evening, which paradoxically became easier once everyone got drunk. They fought with each other easily enough that evening, but as long as Simon kept telling them stories of faraway places and monsters he’d killed, they forgot they were supposed to hate him, at least for a little while.

The following day, the hall was consumed by preparations. Even Simon had to look his best before the procession to the castle. Kayla helped him with that by scrubbing his armor and shining his sword. She even trimmed his nascent beard into something that looked intentional instead of scruffy. By the time Eddek and the Karl’s party were ready to be off, Simon looked less like a vagabond and more like the hired muscle he was supposed to be. 

He didn’t care much about that. He just enjoyed the show as each of the clan representatives slowly merged together into an almost impromptu parade as they approached the castle from the wide main street. For now, it wasn’t just Karls and their bodyguards. Other priests, senior warriors, and notable elders traveled along with them. All of those people would wait in the courtyard for the festivities, but they’d come just the same. 

There were banners and cheering. There was even some music coming from somewhere, which was as colorful as he’d seen the city. Still, the castle loomed above them, and though Simon didn’t actually think it was dangerous as they entered it, the number of soldiers on the walls made it clear that it could be if they wanted to.

They could spring this shut like a trap, but to what end? He asked himself.  

For just a moment, Simon was reminded of the time he went with Baron Corwin to a meeting like this and died in an ambush of crossbow bolts. That was an ugly death, but the same thing didn’t seem to be in the offing here because while weapons were everywhere, they were in plain view and pointed away from the guests, not toward them. 

Still, Simon considered what spells he’d cast to protect them both and in what order before they ever reached the central hall, and Edek sat down at a free spot on the large, round table. Simon didn’t join him there. He’d already been told what to expect. Seats were for attendees, and the walls behind them were for their bodyguards. Simon didn’t mind that. He just stood there, watching everyone file in, searching for signs of treachery. 

This would all be so much easier if I could see their auras, he told himself. It was honestly a shame. He might never be in a room with so many movers and shakers again, and it would have been easy enough to pick out the bad apples and commit them to memory so that he could deal with them later. 

He didn’t seem to be alone in that idea because when the high king finally entered, he was accompanied by two women who whispered to him intermittently with what were surely supernatural insights. Simon made a note to do the same thing in Liepzen the next time he was there for a king’s funeral or coronation. Neither would be enough to clean up the mess that was Brin, but it might be enough to help. 

It might even be enough to figure out who was working for the Unspoken in secret, he realized. Unfortunately, before he could get too excited about the idea, the proceedings began, and he had to pay attention. Still, he made a note to explore the idea further in the future.

The whole thing started with a prayer and a burnt offering to a god that Simon hadn’t even heard of before, let alone believed in. After that, there was a swearing of oaths around the table as each clan renewed their bonds of fealty with the high king. Simon noted that one of the men was from clan Gravenstone and made a note to visit him and see if he could learn anything more about the cursed keep after the drinking started.

Once all of that was done, Simon thought that things might actually get started, but he was wrong. Instead, the king gave another speech. This one wasn’t about the gods, though, or loyalty. Instead, he spoke of the state of the kingdom and his plans for the coming year. 

Normally, that would have bored Simon as much as the rest of the proceedings, but when he said, “And to the north, there is word that the Murani are rising once more. Whatever civil war it is that paralyzed them the last few years might be coming to an end, and if it is, they may look southward once more, as they did, even in my father’s time and his father’s before that.”

Not a civil war, Simon corrected him mentally. A toppling pyramid. While he hadn’t expected that to put a kink in their plans forever, it had only been a few years since his other self had triggered that catastrophe, and he’d been hoping that it would buy more than a couple years of breathing room for the south. 

Nothing else that the high king said interested him half so much, and eventually, they started voting. First, the king announced his measures in regard to taxation, rebuilding of certain defenses, and bounties for the coming year on the most troublesome monsters, and then, the priests passed out pebbles to everyone. The Karls and Erben’s put their tiny vote in the yes pot or the no pot. 

Interestingly, the color changed with each vote, making cheating much harder. Almost everything the king put forward passed easily enough. After that, the Karls were given a chance to put forward their own measures. These were much more contentious and often resulted in arguments and close votes. 

While the king’s votes had been about what they should do as a nation, the clan votes that followed were almost universally about themselves, and there it was a zero-sum game. To give grazing land from one clan was to take it from another. 

Eddek did as his father instructed and seemed to vote with Karl Grelden on almost every issue, which seemed to please the man. Still, Simon didn’t see it amounting to much. 

I suppose it’s better than open warfare, he decided as he watched the events play out. Eventually, Simon decided that this was halfway between a jury of your peers and a popularity contest, and he supposed that he could live with that. 

The whole thing went on for hours, and Simon almost regretted coming, but eventually, when they got all the way around the table, one final vote about the divisions of a certain mining claim was called. Then, after the final stone was cast and counted, there were no more grand speeches. Instead, the results were announced, the drinking started, and the party began in earnest.