John:
>I believe that Lunar tolls (and associated market taxes) are an
easy way to raise the necessary funds to maintain garrisons. The
highways and major markets are the easiest to tax and toll, as they
have to be closely monitored anyway for security and protection of
dignitaries.
I prefer the principle of tax over tolls for a number of reasons.
First there is the problem of currency. While some in Sartar have access to coins (or substitutes like hack silver), others still work through barter. Collecting tolls without widespread currency is a difficult.
Roads and bridges require regular maintenance. Anglo-Saxons kings made their maintenance obligations of the local earldomen. Maybe Sartarite Kings make maintenance or roads and bridges, and patrolling them, an obligation of the tribes (or confederations). You can either meet your obligations by paying goods to hire labor, or do it yourself. This principal probably extends down from the tribe to the clan.
If central authority is weak, the roads will fall into direpair and bandits will stalk them, because no one pays their taxes or fulfills their obligations. The Lunars may well prefer 'unpacified' tribes to pay taxes, as use their troops and slaves to keep the roads.
The complexity is that only the confederations are founded post- so they seem the most likely to have agreed to obligations being written into their foundation. By providing tax credits for duty though they manage to fulfill their obligations by passing the responsibility down the chain.
A related question is whether Sartarite towns home to 'royal mints', and how widely distributed currency is. Sartar would probably have wanted to encourage the use of currency to simplify trade.
Me (Ian Cooper):
>Option A: The King's Road is free to all to travel without let or
hindrance and subject to the King's Peace. Anyone breaking the
King's Peace has to pay his own worth in wergild to the King as well
as any other fines.
>Option B: The Kingdom does not interfere in clan affairs. Travel
across any tula requires the permission of those who own it. You
perform the Greeting on meeting locals or patrols, but you do not
ask for hospitality just for passage.
Jeff:
>I'd like to suggest just that. I think both answers are true: the
clans maintain their customary authority over their tulas - however,
travellers on the Royal Roads are under the protection of the House
of Sartar.
Ah, the 'both Option A and Option B' compromise. I can see this as an extension of the idea of obligations. The tribes are responsbile for maintaining the King's peace and pass the obligatin down to the clans on their own tula (and maybe patrolling into the wilds in between). Again the Lunars may now tax unfriendly tribes and use their own troops instead.
John:
>One innovation to resist the restrictions on travel and
scrutiny/cost on the arterials is the forging of 'starlight paths'
or 'wind roads' - secretive tracks that run from stead to stead over
vast distances through the wild lands and upland passes, avoiding
official scrutiny, providing secret paths for loyalists, rebels and
overburdened merchants.
I like this. I think we can still have this without tolls, if we suggest that the Lunars tax merchants for use of the roads, who may well have silver or portable wealth.
Ian Cooper
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