Eisenmark is ruled in law by Prince Albrecht Karsthal, who holds supreme authority over justice, taxation, soldiers, and mining rights throughout the Silver March of Karsthal. Every decree is issued in his name, every coin of the prince's tenth flows to his treasury, and every officer of the March serves at his pleasure. In practice, Albrecht governs very little. He presides over feasts, hunts, and receptions at Hrad Karvost, while the business of rule is carried out by officers who learned long ago that the prince is best served by problems that never reach him.
These officers sit together as the Hofrat, the prince's privy council, which meets in the upper chambers of Hrad Karvost. The council has no fixed membership in law, since the prince may summon or dismiss whomever he likes, but custom has settled its core: the Kanzler, the Kammermeister, the Hauptmann of the Orel Guard, and the Bergmeister. The Buergermeister of Eisenmark attends when city affairs are discussed, and a factor of the Dwarven Trade Office is invited when trade with the deep realm is at stake. The council does not vote. Its members argue, bargain, and settle matters among themselves before anything is presented to the prince, so that by the time a question reaches Albrecht it has already been decided.
The Kanzler is the head of the prince's government and the keeper of his seal. The chancery under his direction drafts every charter, decree, appointment, and letter that leaves Hrad Karvost, and nothing carries the prince's authority until the Kanzler's clerks have written it and his seal has been pressed into the wax. He sets the council's agenda, decides which petitions reach the prince and which are answered in the prince's name without troubling him, and handles correspondence with White Keep and the other Great Houses.
The office is held by trained lawyers rather than soldiers or nobles of the sword, and its power rests on access rather than force. A Kanzler commands no troops and collects no taxes, yet he decides what the prince sees, hears, and signs. The office's influence depends on Albrecht remaining comfortable and uninterested. Those who wish to change the law of the Silver March must eventually pass through the chancery, and many find its clerks harder to persuade than the prince himself.
The Kammermeister is the master of the prince's treasury, known as the Kammer. His officers collect the prince's tenth from every mine, the tolls on roads and river crossings, market dues, fines from the prince's courts, and the taxes Eisenmark owes under its charter. From the same treasury he pays the Orel Guard, maintains fortifications, funds the court's spectacles, and advances loans to the Crown. He also keeps the ledgers recording how much the Crown owes House Karsthal.
No officer understands the true cost of Albrecht's court better than the Kammermeister, and none is more aware of how much depends on silver continuing to leave the mountains. The office works closely with the Bergmeister, whose records determine what the tenth should yield, and with the Dwarven Trade Office, whose financiers lend against future silver when the treasury runs short. In a quarrel over policy, the Kammermeister's influence rarely comes from argument. It comes from the simple fact that soldiers, clerks, and musicians are all paid on his signature.
The Orel Guard is the standing household army of House Karsthal, named for the eagle on the house's arms. It garrisons Hrad Karvost, holds the fortifications of the March, guards the silver convoys leaving the mountains, patrols the trade roads, and answers threats that local levies cannot handle. Its soldiers are professionals paid from the Kammer, armored in steel plate with eagle-beaked helms and white plumes.
The Guard is commanded by its Hauptmann, who rises through its ranks rather than being appointed from court. The Guard promotes its own, keeps its own traditions, and judges its officers by service rather than birth, which has produced a command loyal first to the Guard and the March and only then to the person of the prince. The Hauptmann reports to the Hofrat, but day to day the Guard governs itself, and its officers regard the Kanzler's chancery with the suspicion soldiers hold for men who rule with ink. With King Aldwin's health failing and the succession uncertain, the question of whom the Orel Guard would obey in a crisis has become the most important unspoken matter in Eisenmark.
The Bergmeister is the prince's master of mines and head of the Bergamt, the mining office in Eisenmark. Under the mining right of House Karsthal, every vein of silver in the March belongs to the prince, who grants the right to work it to miners and shareholders in return for the tenth. The Bergmeister grants and measures claims, declares abandoned mines free, appoints sworn inspectors, and sits as judge in disputes between miners, shareholders, and neighboring claims. The Bergamt keeps the mining book of every claim and is the only lawful buyer of silver ore on the prince's behalf.
Because every mine depends on his favor, the Bergmeister is courted by shareholders, guild masters, and dwarven factors alike. His office reports to the Hofrat but operates with considerable independence, since few at court understand mining law and fewer wish to learn it. The Kanzler treats him as a near-equal.
Eisenmark holds a charter from House Karsthal granting it the rights of a free city within the March. Under that charter, the masters of the city's guilds elect the Rat, the city council, and choose from among its members a Buergermeister who presides over it. The Rat governs the daily life of Eisenmark: markets, weights and measures, the walls and gates, fire watch, street repair, sanitation, the city's lesser courts, and the collection of city dues. The prince's officers rarely interfere in these matters so long as the city's taxes reach the Kammer on time.
The Rat reflects the guilds that elect it, and its sessions are dominated by the largest and wealthiest crafts, particularly the silversmiths and merchants. Journeymen without a guild mastery have no voice in it at all. Seats on the Rat are fiercely contested, and the Buergermeister's chain passes among the leading guild families more often than merit alone would explain.
The Rat maintains its own city watch, the Stadtwache, paid from city dues and answerable to the Buergermeister. The watch keeps the peace in streets and markets, guards the city gates, enforces curfew and fire laws, and brings offenders before the city courts. Its members are townsmen with halberds rather than professional soldiers, but they know the streets far better than the Orel Guard ever will.
The charter divides the city between the two forces, but its wording is old and its boundaries unclear. The Orel Guard holds Hrad Karvost, the elevators, and anything touching the prince's person or his silver, while the watch holds the streets. The Eagle Plaza, the warehouses near the mountain, and any crime involving a noble or a soldier are claimed by both. Arrests made by one force are sometimes released by the other, and the resulting quarrels reach the Hofrat more often than either side would like to admit.
The Dwarven Trade Office holds no office in the government of Karsthal, but no part of that government can function without it. The Trade Office controls sanctioned commerce with the Dwarven Kingdoms, sets the prices of dwarven goods, oversees cargo through the Great Elevators alongside surface guild representatives, and lends money to the Kammer against future silver. Its factors attend the Hofrat when trade is discussed, and their opinions carry the weight of a realm that does not depend on the surface for survival.
The Trade Office's interests are its own. It values the stability of Karsthal because stability is profitable, and it has no stake in which faction controls the Hofrat so long as agreements are honored and prices respected.
The government of Eisenmark works because each office has its own domain, and it strains wherever those domains meet. The Kanzler controls the prince's seal but has no soldiers. The Hauptmann has soldiers but is paid by the Kammermeister. The Kammermeister holds the treasury but depends on the Bergmeister's books and the Trade Office's credit. The Rat governs the streets but cannot touch the prince's officers. Every officer knows that Albrecht's signature can overrule any of them, and every officer works to ensure that it rarely does.
The succession crisis in White Keep has sharpened these divisions. If Alveron falls into open conflict, House Karsthal possesses enough coin and soldiers to shape the outcome, but no one in Eisenmark can say with certainty whether those resources would be directed by the prince, by the Kanzler acting in his name, by the Hauptmann acting for the March, or by whichever officer moves first.
Those with business in Eisenmark learn quickly where to take it. Law, charters, and petitions to the prince go to the Kanzler's chancery. Tolls and taxes go to the Kammer. Soldiers, roads, and convoys go to the Orel Guard. Mines and ore go to the Bergamt. Markets, guild disputes, and street crime go to the Rat and its watch. Dwarven goods and passage into the deep realm go to the Dwarven Trade Office.
The prince himself can be reached at his receptions and celebrations, where he is gracious, generous with his attention, and easily entertained. He rarely remembers petitions afterward, and those who mistake his friendliness for a promise usually find that
his officers decide the matter as they had always intended.