The Estates

The Estates govern Aurel from Solenna through three kinds of member: regional administrations, agricultural and preservation institutions, and landholding families whose estates line the river basins. Administrations can be replaced and institutions reorganized. The families remain because their ground, water, and roads pass together across generations, giving the hereditary part of the chamber a continuity the other seats cannot match.

The Purveyor presides for life, decides what questions reach the assembly, speaks for Aurel abroad, and places the moon’s name on its charters. When the office falls vacant, the seated members are confined in the exchange halls and provisioned through a hatch until they agree on a successor. The conclave has lasted most of a season more than once. A long tenure can outlast several regional administrations without changing any formal rule.

The Estates exercise their clearest authority over what leaves Aurel. Grain, seed stock, oils, preserved fruit, and living animals pass through the Hundred Granaries and Amberward under categories and licenses the assembly sets. Some living stock may not be exported at all. The Estates can authorize, inspect, delay, or prohibit a consignment, but they do not direct cultivation within a reserve merely because its produce may later cross the boundary.

Charters extend Aurel’s name without transferring local agriculture to Solenna. Tiravel, Aster Vale, Pelorin, Tirren, and the Veylan slopes receive guaranteed lanes and protection while retaining authority over their own cultivation. The Estates fund the common obligations and decide what may enter outward trade; the chartered communities continue to decide what grows.

The unresolved question is whether Aurel should use food dependency as open coercion. A standing party argues that the moon feeds powers which would not feed it and charges too little for necessity. That party has lost every vote. Each conclave still chooses a Purveyor able to put the question on the agenda, and none has yet chosen one willing to do so.