Inside the claims tent in High Redoubt, four brass lamps lit up the long pine work-table where Hester Quill and apprentice Olla laid out the broadsheet charter of the Commoners’ Iron Line Pension Board.
The charter, engrossed in formal court hand on triple-thick calfskin thick parchment, established a permanent, sovereign trust that could never be dissolved by country judges or private noble petitions.
“The fifty thousand crowns recovered from the defense fund won’t be spent in a single payout,” Hester explained to the three veteran representatives sitting across the table. “If we pay the money out in a single lump sum, the local grain cartels and taverns will absorb it in two seasons. Instead, the principal is invested in sovereign land mortgages and town canal tolls, generating five percent annual interest—exactly twenty-five hundred silver crowns every winter solstice in perpetuity.”
Sergeant Karr, leaning on his willow crutch, listened with furrowed brows. Beside him sat Corporal Ronald of Split-Stone, whose left hand had been crushed by an artillery caisson, and Martha Miller, the widow of Weaver Tomas from Oakhaven.
“Every surviving veteran and widow receives an annual pension of one crown and four silver coins,” Hester continued. He pointed to the payment schedule. “Paid on the first day of winter, as long as a direct child or spouse survives. When a lineage dies out, the surplus dividend reverts to the apprentice schools and widows’ hospices of the sixty-four villages.”
