Everyone in the room knew this was political posturing, playing to an audience that wasn’t present, but who would hear everything about this meeting from at least six people. That would be the current tender of Trellech’s land magic, who sat at the top of the pyramid of the Halls of Justice.
Anyone in this room - Charlus included - might request a meeting with the Lord of Trellech’s Justice, but some of them had such meetings regularly in their diaries. Lamont Morgan, the current Lord, had a weekly gathering with the senior clerks, the seniors among the magical specialists, and a selection of judges. And, on occasion, a rotation of solicitors and barristers, to get a sense of the current issues. Not that they’d be consulted about this problem, not yet.
Griffin normally met with him every fortnight, with the others concerned with the inheritance court and cases. He knew Harriet and Nestor had the same general arrangements for their courts. Lamont had been scrupulous about not showing any one of them favouritism. He’d also been clever enough not to put the three of them in the same meetings too often, in case the raw edges sharpened into something hard to step back from.
“I am the one who brought it to Magister Pelson’s attention.” If Aplin were using formality, Antimony could too, and obviously would. And, as they both knew, Griffin did technically rank her when it came to the tables of precedence. Griffin noted he got the title, and Aplin got the brief response. “Without telling him any specifics. He came to the same conclusions after a day’s observation, and from there we proceeded as noted.”
“The question,” Christopher Gregory said, “Is what we do about it, isn’t it? Obviously, we can manage for the time being with some thoughtful scheduling. But that won’t do for the long-term.”
“And we expect there to continue to be complex inheritance cases. Titles passing down far more quickly or unexpectedly, with new heirs being named. The Carillon estate, in ‘22. The probate of that one was simple enough, but sorting out the death duties was less so. There was that matter with the Hadleys in ’25. Or there’s the establishment of Lady Martin-Baddock and the complexities around Lionel Baddock’s inheritance, given his mother is still living but unlikely to recover. And that mess with the Sisleys in ’26. And we had the challenge of the Romleys.” Antimony’s voice shifted there. She’d been deeply involved and knew the surviving family well now. That last had been tragic, three brothers all killed in succession in the War, two with young wives but no children. The bulk of the estate had ended up passing down to their sister barely out of Schola.
“We could all name a few others, if a little less complex.” Antimony held her own there. “The simple deaths, quick to resolve, those have been tended to. It’s the complex ones that draw harder on the enchantments and will be coming for years.”
Griffin would not have put it quite like that, but everything Antimony said was true. He picked up where she stopped. “We are also looking at the fact that if we were to do significant work, we need to decide what it would look like. I have some ideas on what we might wish to consider. March 1929 or later would be optimal for a long-term solution. Between now and then, we would need to determine what that looks like, gather the materials, and make all the preparations. While also working up a temporary solution that would hold until then.”
Gloriana fixed her eyes on Griffin. “And how much do you know about it?”
That was the thing. He was still relatively new in his current position, holder of the Yew Chair Primus, as the Courts labelled it. All the magical specialists of the Courts could trade off expertise and duties, but the inheritance court was now his particular charge.
The problem was that Cleon Howard had only retired last year, handing over the chair to Griffin himself. Griffin knew a lot of things, but he was still new to being Primus, and he knew it. Especially when it came to the finicky nuanced inheritance cases, where it wasn’t solely about legal precedent, but about the ways magic twined through families. So much had fallen out of Cleon’s head by the end, Griffin had to keep double checking what he thought he knew.
However, Griffin had not spent several late nights in the library this past fortnight for no reason. “Obviously, it needs more study, and naturally a specific proposal. But from the measurements taken, the facts make clear that it is affecting the inheritance court significantly more than the others. In consultation with others with expertise, we should explore resetting the jet used in that courtroom entirely. I don’t know if there was some flaw in it, if the increased number of complex cases has worn it down, or what. It is clear from the evidence that this has been building for some time, well before my taking the Yew chair.”
There was a chorus - or a discordance, more accurately - of mutters around the table. Griffin gave them a moment before pitching his voice to cut through the chatter. “One at a time, please. Gloriana, would you begin, then Christopher? We’ll work clockwise from there.” It conveniently put half the table before Griffin would have to say anything on his own account, and let the senior staff with the strongest history and claim go first.
Gloriana huffed, but she couldn’t actually take any offence at that. “The expense for one thing, and the problems of having a courtroom entirely out of commission for an extended period. Obviously.” After a moment, she added, “You can’t imagine it would get approval.”
Griffin spread his hands out. “At the moment, I would like us to entertain all ideas, no matter how unlikely. It may be that one of them will lead us to the best choice. My goal for the moment is to lay out the possible proposals for Lamont to weigh in on. Our role here is to ensure those proposals are as complete as possible, and do not neglect any relevant factor.” There would be a decision of some kind if he had to force them to the point. Ignoring the problem would not make it go away.
Gloriana frowned, but she nodded to Christopher. “The same concerns, but I agree with Griffin that we should consider all possibilities. If we reset the jet, though, do we also need to consider the other courtrooms, given that we are seeing some related effects? And what of the impact on the seventh hall, above and beyond the scheduling constriction? Don’t we also need to consider the jet there, for example?”
Charlus was scribbling down notes furiously in shorthand. Griffin knew he’d get everything in summary. “An excellent question,” Griffin agreed. “Harriet?” He nodded to her politely.
In some ways, he found Harriet more difficult to deal with than Nestor. Griffin knew where he stood with Nestor. The man did not care for him, did not think him anything like an equal. He had never been directly rude, but Griffin had been able to see the ripples of Nestor’s gossip here and there, the people who kept Griffin at a distance. Despite all those mumblings, Griffin refused to know his place and concede his role as Heir.
Harriet, on the other hand, had been entirely civil, throughout, but it had been a remarkably neutral civil. However, Harriet had shown no signs of wanting to become closer allies. She had never undermined him. She got on with her work and did it well. Griffin couldn’t argue with any of that, or with her strategy in navigating the politics, but it did make her a cypher.
She considered for a moment. “Similar concerns as have already been raised. Also, a concern about who might lead this. We’re short-staffed as it is. We can’t spare anyone to go chasing around for an answer. And yet, if it’s not one of our own, the work won’t be done properly.” Harriet decidedly wasn’t volunteering for the work, but he hadn’t expected her to. For one thing, she had young children at home, two under seven, and she did not favour late nights at work.
Not that Griffin necessarily did either, but he had a rather more fluid definition of work and the rest of his life than most people. He was the sort who had work-related thoughts in the bath, reliably, and there was no good way to chart that in one column or another. And there was no one at home to want time with him or complain if he came home from work for hours more reading.
Griffin nodded at that, then said, keeping his voice just as pleasant and blessing his Incantation training for the ability to do that, “Nestor?” Exquisite politeness in all directions was the answer here. People might not like it, but they couldn’t argue with it, not without looking like fools.
“I don’t agree it needs doing. We can manage until ‘29.” That was shortsighted, and he very much hoped both Gloriana and Christopher made note of it and passed that along as well. It was the sort of thing Lamont should hear as Lord of Trellech. But of course, he wasn’t in this meeting, Griffin hadn’t considered inviting him. First, Lamont Morgan was an exceedingly busy man - he kept up his own duties with the Courts as well as the Lord’s. But second, and more important, if he sat in on discussions like this, it put all the weight on his decisions, unbalancing the process. But he’d be asking Gloriana and Christopher for their take on the meeting. Griffin was sure of it. Likely others but absolutely them.
Griffin just nodded. “Noted. Master Willis?” From there, it went round the table more or less predictably until it came to Mistress Henning. Griffin had kept his own comments brief, noting that he felt they needed a solution before 1929. He acknowledged that a long-term solution might take that long to arrange, citing several cases from previous centuries for precedent, though only one involved the inheritance courts directly.
Mistress Henning took her time. She had more than enough status to make everyone wait on her, and Griffin certainly had more sense than to rush. He hadn’t been sure which way she was leaning. She had an excellent face for bets at cards, if she played. She looked around the table. “Master Pelson and Captain Orland know their work. Their documentation is up to my standards.” That got a soft chuckle from near everyone there. “I believe we should take some action. Beginning, perhaps, with investigating what options are viable, a research project, before planning actual renovations.” Then she glanced over at Christopher and Gloriana. “Perhaps we might put one to Lamont at our weekly meeting? Master Pelson, if you were to make a proposal for investigation, what would you recommend?”
Griffin swallowed. That was cutting through several Gordian knots. Not that he hadn’t given quite a lot of thought to it. “If it is the jet that is the concern, it seems to me we need an expert on jet. That means Whitby, either going there or persuading someone there to come down to us. There are only a handful of carvers the courts have worked with previously, and I do not know their current status. I would begin there, see about some investigatory conversations, and determine what might be most usefully done to evaluate the options going forward. Ideally three or four options, so we could consider efficacy, cost, available staff, expertise, time to completion, and so on.” He might not have gone to Dunwich, but he’d lived through four expansions of his father’s store, and had picked up more than a bit of the necessary project planning in the process.
Mistress Henning nodded approvingly. “Sensible, yes.” She then nodded at Rollings. “Your Honour?”
He was chuckling. “I have, it seems, little left to me to say. Naturally, I would agree with that, yes. I would willingly swear that the court feels different, in ways that are less suitable for proper justice. I see a great benefit in tending that sooner than later. And as someone who also sometimes hears cases in the criminal court, there are excellent reasons to make sure the effect does not expand.” That was more support than Griffin had expected from Rollings, and he gave a slight nod of respect at it.
Magistra Follett was nodding along, though she kept her comments far briefer. “The same in all parts as what my honourable colleague has said.”
With that, well, the way forward seemed clear enough. Griffin paused just for a moment, not to seem too hasty. “We will have the notes from this meeting tomorrow, as stated. Mistress Henning, Master Willis, Gloriana, Christopher, would it be of help for me to put together proposals for Monday?” They met on Wednesdays, routinely, the most senior staff and a few chosen others. It would mean Griffin working through Saturday and Sunday, but he could do that.
