Lord Bramwell's demand arrived in the third spring, and it was, Alaric noted with something close to professional admiration, extremely well constructed.
He did not challenge the charter. That had been the thing they had all been braced for and it did not come. Instead he levied an extraordinary aid across the whole March — lawful, within his rights, precedented, and justified in the writ by the need to repair the March's roads and bridges following two hard winters.
Argenton's assessed share was enormous.
"It's four times what our proportion of the March's population would suggest," Victoria said, having done the arithmetic three times. "And about ten times what our proportion of its land would suggest, which is the basis these things are traditionally assessed on."
"On what basis has he assessed it?"
"Wealth. Which is not traditional, and is not unlawful, and which he has justified in the writ with a single sentence about capacity to contribute." She set the document down. "It is a demand designed to be paid. That's what troubles me. He hasn't asked for something impossible. He's asked for something painful that we can just about manage, and he has done it in a form no court would overturn."
"Then we pay it," Cecily said.
"If we pay it," Alaric said, "we establish that Argenton pays extraordinary aids assessed on wealth. He will levy another next year, and another the year after, and each one will be lawful, and each one will cite the precedent of the last. In nine years this town will be funding his debts entirely and there will be no single moment at which we could have objected."
"And if we refuse?"
"Then we are refusing a lawful writ, which is the one thing this town has never done in forty years, and he will have precisely the grievance he has been fishing for since his second letter." Alaric spread his hands. "That is the construction. It is genuinely excellent work. I would like to know who is advising him, because it is not a man who made his money in wool."
The council argued for three days.
It was Thomas, in the end, who found the third answer, and he found it — as he noted afterward with some irritation — not through any brilliance but because he had spent two years being interrupted by small children and had lost the ability to think in long unbroken lines.
"We pay it," he said, "and we itemise it."
"Meaning what?"
"Meaning we pay the full sum, on time, without objection, and we send with it a complete written account of exactly what the money is being taken from." He was working it out as he spoke. "The school's second cohort — postponed, funded by the aid. The eastern spur drainage — postponed. The fever house's winter stores — reduced. Every single thing this town will not now do, listed, costed, and attributed to the aid, in a document we copy to the March administration, to the Bishop's chancellor, and to every other holding that has been assessed."
Alaric went very still.
"You want to make it visible."
"I want to make it itemised. He can levy what he likes. He cannot stop us keeping honest books and he cannot stop us sending them to people." Thomas leaned forward. "Every other holding in this March has been assessed too. They're all quietly furious and all individually powerless. What none of them has is a document showing precisely what the aid costs in schools and drainage and winter stores, written by the most respected accounting office in the March, that they can point at without having to make the argument themselves."
"That is—" Alaric stopped, and started again. "That is not a legal strategy. That is a political one. I want to note that I would never have proposed it and that I am not certain it is wise."
"Noted. Do you think it will work?"
Alaric considered for a long moment.
"I think it will make him extremely angry," he said, "and I think it will make it very much harder for him to do this a second time, and I think those two facts are going to be in tension for several years and one of them will eventually win. I could not tell you which."
They paid it, in full, well before it was due.
Victoria's accompanying account ran to nine pages and was the most restrained document she had ever written — no accusation anywhere in it, no adjective that could be objected to, simply columns, and a plain statement at the end of what would not now happen and when.
Four other holdings requested copies within the month.
By midsummer there were more than a dozen, and a clerk in the Bishop's chancery had been heard to describe Argenton's account as "the only honest document to come out of this March in a decade," which was reported back to Alaric by a friend and which Alaric repeated to the council with visible satisfaction.
Lord Bramwell did not levy an extraordinary aid the following year.
He did something else instead, and it took them nearly two years to notice.