Written By Celeste
Oct. 13, 2019, 6:30 a.m.(1/4/1012 AR)
An Embassy, by its definition, is an area inside our own borders that would effectively be owned and ruled by the foreign power that holds the Embassy. Inside its borders the Compact's laws and traditions hold no power. The Embassy would be ran in accordance to the customs, laws, and will of the Ambassador and their homeland. What goes on inside the Embassy would not be subject to our jurisdiction.
Let us take a moment to think about that, using Cardia as an example.
The Faith of the Pantheon last year declared an embargo against the importing of Cardian Steelsilk due to its manufacture using the labor of slaves. Cardia, as a nation, is heavily invested in the use of slave labor. Not just the practices of Thralldom of which so many of the Compact have already declared repugnant. Full, active, slavery. Give them an Embassy in Arx, and do you think it would not include slaves? Are you willing to invite them to openly display their slaves, bring them to Arx?
By law, no House of the Compact may ever have more than 100 armed retainers inside the boundaries of Arx. Yet an Embassy would not, technically, be Arx nor bound by its laws. What stops an Ambassador from calling more than 100 troops to reside in the Embassy, or using them if diplomacy fails? Do you wish to put that large of a foreign force inside the city, let alone inside the Crown Ward? It is a short march from anywhere across the Sovereign Bridge to the Palace and any skirmish would be well over before any other house could respond. And that assumes that the bridge is usable by any of the Crown's allied forces. It's an impressive choke-point; ask any strategist.
Now, if your response to these quickly-thought-of issues with an Embassy is that we can simply restrict them in the granting, then I would say this: If the rule of the foreign power's law is restricted in any way upon the grounds of their established embassy, it is no longer an embassy. That would be a Consulate.
This may seem like a pedantic distinction, but the precision of language must be used when constructing treaties. Ambiguities only lead to friction.
Lady Celeste Pravus
Fourth Reflection of the Mirrormasks
Written By Zacharie
Oct. 13, 2019, 3:24 a.m.(1/3/1012 AR)
Should catch up with the niece and nephew, rather soon.
I know I have many of each so I shall specify. The one who arrived as a pair.
Written By Vanora
Oct. 13, 2019, 3:03 a.m.(1/3/1012 AR)
Relationship Note on Cambria
Yours though, every single time.
Written By Cambria
Oct. 13, 2019, 2:43 a.m.(1/3/1012 AR)
Written By Mabelle
Oct. 13, 2019, 2:24 a.m.(1/3/1012 AR)
Written By Delia
Oct. 12, 2019, 10:54 p.m.(1/3/1012 AR)
Written By Cambria
Oct. 12, 2019, 8:16 p.m.(1/3/1012 AR)
PS. I made that bit up about Marach.
Written By Juniper
Oct. 12, 2019, 6:39 p.m.(1/3/1012 AR)
When I began my hospice, I thought it would just be a little place, a small lantern set in a tiny window of the world.
Such a light they bring. Thank you.
Written By Rosalind
Oct. 12, 2019, 6:32 p.m.(1/3/1012 AR)
Written By Mara
Oct. 12, 2019, 5:08 p.m.(1/3/1012 AR)
Written By Josephine
Oct. 12, 2019, 1:35 p.m.(1/2/1012 AR)
Snow. Water from the sky frozen. Off with it, begone. No good comes of the sea, and no good comes of the snow.
Written By Willow
Oct. 12, 2019, 1:21 p.m.(1/2/1012 AR)
Your saddest blooms
The hungry
The weak
The withered
And the suffering
Such flowers as require
Extra love and tender care
The gardener loves
No blossom less than the other
Their great value
Lies in numbers
For sweet smelling beauty
Is fleeting
Written By Willow
Oct. 12, 2019, 12:02 p.m.(1/2/1012 AR)
Once Summer, Now Winter.
There is only what a man can stand to do.
What luxury, to feel liberated
to condemn those walking with the downtrodden
More strongly than those who deny your gods.
Is weakness worth such contempt,
Or is that strength so feared?
Insulated in the down of sleeping geese
I weep
Written By Sydney
Oct. 12, 2019, 10:13 a.m.(1/2/1012 AR)
Am I still hiding there, now only behind fists, status, and a grin?
The commoner isn't a threat.
The brawler hasn't a thought.
The smiling haven't a care.
Hiding, indeed.
Written By Marian
Oct. 12, 2019, 6:26 a.m.(1/2/1012 AR)
I suppose I could have thrown a large celebration to herald the event. However, I spent the day with my children. We did have a cake, a special treat. Nia and Fergus begged to sit on my lap so we fairly left the matter up to chance. Valen prevailed much to his siblings ire. He's such a quiet boy but very clever. Great scholars will have to mentor him when he gets older since his clever mind figured out the best way to win.
In the coming days, I shall be visiting my brother and sister, a simple dinner. Truly, I need nothing more than the love and support of my family. Perhaps I shall drag my liege out for a boar hunt. Princess Gwenna and I might have a quick drink to catch up on matters of state. It's just another day in my life. Nothing to put in parchment.
Written By Marian
Oct. 12, 2019, 6:16 a.m.(1/2/1012 AR)
Relationship Note on Aiden
Since embracing my Faith, I have put aside such superstitions. However, I find myself at the Shrine of Petrichor, praying on this matter. Because even if we discount the symbolism, groups of birds dying mid-flight does not speak well of our environment. I have made a point of keeping my own companion, Ender, grounded when outdoors until a better explanation can be made. I am encouraging others with knowledge of these events to speak to Duke Aiden Rubino since his extensive knowledge of birds might assist in averting further tragedy to other flocks.
Written By Arcadia
Oct. 12, 2019, 2:50 a.m.(1/1/1012 AR)
I suppose it feels fitting that I became the countess-consort of a place that boarders the everwinter. Perhaps it was destined from when I was a small child. I wonder if that means somewhere, someone argued that I could do this, be a leader. Some days, it sure feels like someone is playing a joke on me.
Written By Elisha
Oct. 12, 2019, 1:27 a.m.(1/1/1012 AR)
"A blessed vision," the archscholar murmurs, her gray eyes downcast in obedience.
"Search the archives," the Archlector of Death commands, "until you find the place to which my dream corresponds."
"Forgive me, Voice of the Mother of Furrows," the archscholar replies. "But while there is no doubt that I could find the precise citation in the archives, I could not come back to share it with you."
"And why is that?" the Archlector of Death demands.
"Because the place of which you dreamed knows only arrivals, not departures," the archscholar says,
and the Archlector of Death sees in
her dew-touched web
that the harbor is a fallow field
where the waves dance not with water but with grain
and the warm stones enclose pasturage,
and the shapes swaying across the rolling hills are plows.
"What of the passengers," she asks, "rushing onto the quay?"
They smell of carbon and water,
ammonia and lime,
phosphorous and iron and salt.
Written By Elisha
Oct. 12, 2019, 12:54 a.m.(1/1/1012 AR)
The connections between one element of her story and another are not always obvious to the patrons in her storefront chapel; an empty sheath might indicate war or battle, a polite duel on a wide green lawn, or a woman who lost her man; a mirror might mean vanity or reflection or the place where mirrors are made. But what enhances for the patrons every tale shared by the inarticulate charlatan is the space that remains around it, the void bereft of words. The descriptions of the charlatan have this virtue, if none other:
However, time touches even shopfront chapels, eventually, and words begin to replace objects and gestures and cries. First the charlatan barks exhortations, then she makes herself understood with sentences. She will soon descend into metaphor and sermon and discourse. Still, no matter how eloquently she speaks, she will not know if the patrons have mastered her language, or if she has learned theirs.
* * *
(The strong build embassies in the capitals of the weak, with permission or without. What is that half-seen doorway on the leafy Upper street, between the perfumer's shop and the adulterer's window?)
Written By Tikva
Oct. 12, 2019, 12:10 a.m.(1/1/1012 AR)
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.