The Measure of a Man (2/2)
The man glanced at him like he'd just done a parlor trick. “Yes, I suppose that's a blunter way of saying it. And the tradition has been that in the event of a noble's death without heirs, the title can pass over to a surviving spouse... a legally married one.”
Threadbare saw some flaws with this. “It seems like an issue of massive overreach to solve what is, quite frankly, a limited problem. This is really only a thing that affects nobles. Why did you try to extend it to cover every human in Cylvania?”
“Well... Sir? Lord?”
“Just Threadbare.”
“Well then, Threadbare, we didn't try to extend it. We succeeded.” The man's smile shrunk a bit. “Frankly we would have only applied it to nobility, but the Council's been quite busy these last few years eradicating a lot of old precedent, and eliminating a lot of the privileges and legal distinctions between nobility and the commonfolk.”
Threadbare nodded. “That was necessary. There were some very bad abuses of the system. The Council did have to become involved. We had a big talk about this.”
“Yes, and the very few nobles who abused their positions were punished for it,” Eustace said, speaking as if to a child. “But the end result is that now when we have to change a law to fix a noble problem, we can't just call it a fix for nobles. And since the only nobles affected are the human ones in Cylvania, it was simpler to change the laws for humans.”
“Which doesn't change the fact that you are impacting commonfolk. Many of whom had no say in this law.”
The man's smile grew, slipped into a sneer. “Actually we're not. That's the glorious thing of it. It only regulates LEGAL marriage. Most marriages in Cylvania are common law. Neither the Council nor the lords have any say in who marries whom. It's only when a noble marries, that it is recognized by law. And so the majority of the non-noble humans in this valley can marry whomever they please, and do. They can marry golems, or gribbits, or even sheep or dogs for all we care. It's none of our business.”
Threadbare wasn't sure he liked the idea of his species being considered as the same romantic category as livestock. He was fairly certain now that this man really didn't like him, and was only being polite because he had to.
Still, he was having trouble thinking of a good response. He hadn't known that Cylvania law worked that way when it came to marriages.
“Excuse me Mister Thrump. I have a, hmmm.... question about that, if you don't mind,” Dracosnack asked, as he pulled a book from his pack.”
“Of course. Ask away! I am happy to answer any concerns you might have, mister...”
“Just Dracosnack. I don't have a gender. I'm a toy.”
“Well, it's refreshing to hear you admit that.” Eustace said, then winced. The sneer disappeared, as he cleared his throat. “Not that I meant anything by that.”
“None taken. It was my personal decision. However many of my friends do not share my viewpoint, and have decided to adopt genders. If only to make them easier to address in the course of their duties,” Dracosnack said, leafing through the book.
Threadbare snuck a look at the title, which was “Assault and Barristry for fun and profit: A primer of Cylvanian law and significant cases.”
Finally, Dracosnack seemed to find what he was looking for. “Your posit is that the law only affects human nobles, yes?”
“In practice, yes.” Eustace nodded. “And we're not annulling any marriages that have already happened. So it's not harming or restricting anyone, really. If someone wants a... dolly on the side, they can, they just can't pass their title over to them.”
That was definitely a slur, Threadbare thought. Eustace was showing a bit of stress now.
“But it still covers every human within Cylvania.”
“Well yes, it has to, but it really doesn't affect—”
“Including human golems.”
“I don't believe we have any of those.”
“Oh? We don't?” Dracosnack looked up at him. “Mmm... I think you are mistaken.”
“No, I'm not. The Council decided, early on, that no flesh golems were to be crafted as the practice was foul and disrespectful to the remains of the dead,” Eustace squinted at Threadbare. “Unless you've been sneaking about behind our back about that. Threadbare.”
“I haven't. My skill with that is still at level one,” Threadbare folded his hands. “I believe my friend is referring to golems with the Human job.”
“What?” Eustace blinked. “No no, the law only affects actual humans.”
“Does it?” Dracosnack asked. “Do you happen to have a copy of it with you?”
“I don't need one. We kept it simple on purpose,” Eustace snapped. “Only humans may legally be joined in marriage to humans.”
“Mmmm... Well then, it seems, hm, quite simple. My friend Buttons has the human job. So she is free to legally marry other humans without breaking the law.”
“Is your friend Buttons a human?” Eustace snapped.
“Yes. She is also a golem.”
“Then she's a golem!”
“But she has the human job.”
“But she can't have children!”
“Is that the determinator for humanity, here?” Dracosnack asked.
“Well.. it's one of them...”
“Because there are many people who are sterile, or cannot have children due to medical reasons,” Dracosnack pressed on. “Are they no longer human?”
Eustace was sweating now. “No, of course not, that's ridiculous.”
“I'm just trying to, hmmm, understand, what exactly you mean when you refer to HUMANS in this law,” Dracosnack said.
“It's just... it only really affects nobles,” Eustace said, weakly.
“Nobles like Celia,” Threadbare said, slowly.
Eustace went pale. “No, of course... I mean... she's... she WAS human...”
“And now she can't have children due to medical reasons,” Threadbare said quietly. “Well no, she could adopt. We've talked that over, and put it on the table assuming she could find a good father to marry.”
“Which raises another issue,” Dracosnack went on, his voice as pleasant as it had been throughout, “there are several precedents in here of nobles adopting children, and passing their title on to them.”
Eustace swallowed hard.
“Really, I'm just trying to understand what you consider the denominator for mmm... determining who's human and who isn't,” Dracosnack offered. “Because you may be affecting more people than you think here. And opening up opportunities for people you didn't consider with the initial law. My friend Buttons certainly wasn't considering marrying what she calls a... fleshsack before this, but after I inform her that this is now an option, I believe she may want to go courting. And she does seem fond of young Apollyon.”
Eustace was slumped in his chair now, and the sweat pattered down his face like a fountain gone awry. But he rallied. “Priests!”
“Excuse me?” Threadbare offered.
“Priests! The gods will decide! That's... that's a part of a legal marriage, the church can decide who gets married! And there's no way in hell— no way they'd bless a union like THAT.”
“Now that's interesting,” Dracosnack said, “Because first and foremost, I don't believe that every religion has doctrine forbidding such unions. And secondly, even in the cases that a religion does, I can find places where exceptions have been made. Such as the case of Smith and Galadrian, and the legitimacy of the half-elven heirs in both societies...”
It went on for a bit more, but finally Threadbare decided that the poor man would have a stroke and had mercy on him. “At any rate, you can see our concerns,” Threadbare said, and took Dracosnack's hand. “We had best be going. Some friends are waiting on us. Please pass our concerns on to Lady Easterlynn-Proudsmythe at your earliest convenience.”
They'd made it perhaps two minutes down the road when a carriage sped out of the estate, driver whipping the horses frantically as it sped past them, toward the Capitol.
“I think that went rather well,” Dracosnack said, picking himself out of the ditch where he'd jumped to avoid being run over. “That was a good legal discussion. I got another Barrister level out of it.”
“I think so too. That it went rather well, I mean,” Threadbare said, dusting off his top hat and replacing it on his head. I wonder how the others are doing? Let's go and see if everyone's at the tavern by now.”