Lesser house / family
Halden Reckoning
Also called The Reckoning · the Reckoning office · Halden's tithe office · the reckoning at Halden Close
House Halden's tithe and store office, staffed by house servants rather than churchmen. It counts intake, orders the filling and emptying of the great barns, and keeps a running estimate of how long the valleys and the capital can be fed, in three series of books.
House Halden's tithe and store office, updated annually for four centuries, which knows the true agricultural capacity of southern Britannia and shows it to nobody. Its clerks are house servants recruited from the valleys, not churchmen. A body that answers requests for its books by saying a private meeting keeps private notes — an answer the Bank Council is thought to have learnt from watching Halden give it.
Named with it
- Granger Thomas Ashe of Halden Close
- Granger Symond Hale of Halden Close
- Nicholas Ferrers
- Duke Cuthbert Halden
- Steward Nicholas Ferrers
- Granger Symond Hale
Ties
- household office of House Halden
- distrusted by the chapter interest
- refuses returns to the Westminster ministries and the Lords
- office of House Halden
In the chronicle
At the table
It holds the true agricultural capacity of southern Britannia over four centuries and shows it to no one, calling them household books; ministers and the Lords have been refused. Duke, steward and granger decide what Westminster learns, and grain prices move on the answer. It was caught out once, in the Second Baron War. When a district's returns fall it quietly hires careful, unconnected investigators. Westminster's first act in a bad year is a discreet enquiry to it; it is understood to have understated a shortfall for three months in 4589. It answers enquiries but does not supply returns. It quietly sent an investigator to Sheldgrave and never asked again.