May 20th, 10 AG
"Who comes to swear the oaths?"
The herald's voice rang out somewhat muffled in the low, smoke-choked room, but it was clear enough. A few moments passed as we waited for the hubbub of speech from the galleries to dwindle away to nothingness, then the rejoinder came.
"I am Hamleth, son of Halas, of the Kindred of the Jerod. I come to swear the Great Oaths."
The herald nodded, and stepped back, and then it was my turn to speak. My voice was somewhat parched with the oily smoke of the braziers - whatever wood they burnt around here to drive off the spring insects wasn't overly pleasant for men - but it was clear enough when it reverberated into the hewn-wood chamber at the heart of Junction.
"Hamleth, son of Halas, of the Kindred of the Jerod. The oaths you come to swear are not easily discarded. They will ward you, warm you, and guide you, but all men will know of their swearing. Take counsel in your heart. I ask now, as High Arbiter of the Imperium - who comes to swear the oaths?"
It was tradition, or as near as a tradition could be in this savage land. Instructing the inductees with the call and response only took a few hours, but the solemnity of the process was a sort of pageantry that the wild folk of both south, north, and east took very seriously. Before me the scarred bent man visibly considered for a few moments, perhaps playing up his decision for some of his followers who had made the journey - but then he spoke anew, voice still stern and clear.
"I am Hamleth, son of Halas, of the Kindred of the Jerod. I come to swear the Great Oaths."
Formally, of course, the Oaths of Rule were little different than the Oaths of Conduct. It wasn't my idea to call them the Great Oaths. That was just a name that had stuck, and the reason listeners would never hear me refer to them as such. But if it made those who swore them treat them with a degree of care, even reverence, that was hardly a bad thing. So I didn't bother to correct the wizened patriarch, and merely continued with the ceremony.
"Your coming is seen, Hamleth, son of Halas. I am Viktor Nemtsov, High Arbiter and Hegemon of the Imperium of Man, by the grace of God. I am come here today to hear you swear your oaths. What will you promise to me, and the folk to which you now join your strength?"
Seats in the gallery creaked. At my side a scribe readied a nib, a crude thing which leaked, but the records would show the swearing at least in some amount of detail. The seat of the Hall of Justice where I sat was on a small raised dais, only high enough to let the man who sat within it look down a few inches into the eyes of most petitioners. It had not been my desire for those who sat in judgment to tower over the accused, primarily because the Hall would often be used for functions other than matters of law. But today I looked down on the chieftain in truth, so bent with age was he.
"Before the assembled witnesses, I swear the first Oath - the Oath of Guard. I promise, before men and gods, to be a shield for those in my care, be they of my kindred or of any other kindred who also hold the oaths. To guard them, to guide them, and to hold them from harm both from the wickedness of men's hearts, and the malice of those in the wilderness."
I nodded. It was well said. He sounded like he meant the charge. That was always the easiest oath for men to agree to, for it marched much with what tribal chieftains and the leaders of little polities already owed to their people, knowing or unknowning. I rapped the staff in my hand on the floor with an echoing boom, and then intoned my response.
"I have heard you swear the Oath of Guard. I also swear to you now that the armies of the Imperium will themselves be a shield unto you, to aid you in your task, and that there shall not be a day when you do not know this protection is near at hand. May your people always live without fear."
Some of the fur-wearing warriors that had accompanied the Jerod leader glanced from one to another at those words. It was a large part of the reason many clan fathers agreed to take the oaths - there were few who lived within even a long month's ride of the towns held by the Imperium who had not heard of the steel-clad warriors, men forged of the bones of the hills who no warrior could slay, who killed with the whisper of death from afar. And that was as it should be. Military supremacy was a fundamental premise of law and order, the monopoly of violence held by the state. It was a monopoly I also sought to exercise, within the vales and leagues the Germanics now held.
"Before the assembled witnesses, I swear the second Oath - the Oath of Law. I myself, and those of my kindred who I speak for, shall place ourselves under the Law. To follow its precepts in our hearts, to accept the dictates of good conduct within the Imperium and without, to be bound by the judgement of the Arbiters and Justices if we are ever found wanting. I swear to yield myself up for trial if such is the decision of the Lawkeepers, and that I and mine shall abandon revenge as an instrument of justice, trusting instead in the Law."
There were strange words in there in the Jerodian cant, loanwords from Common which had had to be adopted to make the oath. Even the concept of justice was one that didn't have an exact analog in most primitive languages, I had found, but the village elder trotted out the phrases naturally enough, all things considered. It was, in some ways, the more difficult of the oaths - easy to swear, but many men had fallen short when it came time for the upholding of the oath. I understood it, really; but that was the terrible burden of justice - to forgo what was easy, and pursue instead what was righteous. Men would war within themselves when asked to give up family members who had committed crimes, to put away their spears and deliver lawbreakers over for justice instead of exacting a satisfying but unjust revenge. It was an ideal, though, and so one I endeavored to hold the men who swore it to.
Down the iron rod came again, twice more echoing out into the stillness of the Hall.
"I have heard you swear the Oath of Law. I also swear to you now that justice will be given to your people in full measure - impartial, wise, and fair to all men, great and small. I furthermore espouse to you the right of appeal to even myself, in the pursuit of justice. My hall shall never be dark, nor its doors barred, if you feel you have been wronged by your brother."
There was little comment at those words, though perhaps that was mainly because few understood how impartial justice strove to be. I had had to execute men who refused to let justices trained in fair Mara rule against their mighty men and chiefs in matters of gravest law, from manslaughter to rape. It was not a natural thing, truly, the law - to men who lived by might and bonds of kinship, treating those weaker than them or from another tribe or people as equals before the scales of justice was very strange. Alien, dangerous even. But it was a fundamental axiom, necessary for building a better world than that of brutish clannish nature. And so the inductees swore, though they did not, for certain, appreciate how that truth would be applied.
"Before the assembled witnesses, I swear the final Oath - the Oath of Fealty. If you have need of me and mine, our men shall march alongside the armies of the Imperium. If you have need of the goods of our lands, to serve the needs of the many - those we shall render freely. Being now a citizen and lord of the Imperium, I shall uphold its good name, and do my utmost to carry my responsibilities forward with character befitting of one endowed with the mantle of Rule."
Those were the summation of the bonds of order and trade which were the sinews of the Imperium. Fundamentally, the Oath of Fealty upheld the rights of taxation, recruitment, and so on, which were vital to the maintenance of law and order. Rarely would it be exercised in a full and stark manner, for I had yet to encounter a military presence which required more than a Great Company or two deployed to great their strength - but the premise was built into the Oaths of Rule for just such a day as when other stronger foes might be encountered, a guard against great need.
Three times I struck my staff against the floor now, and a smile was in my voice - it was done.
"I have heard you swear the Oath of Fealty. I also swear to you now that call upon what you possess shall never be made flippantly or without need, nor the lives of your kinsmen be spent needlessly. Go now, and be valorous - having heard the entirety of your oaths, I raise you as Firstman of the Imperium, to administrate the polity assigned to you. May your rule be just, and prosperous, before the light of Our Father."
That last section most who swore the Oaths barely noted, but it was of great importance to me. I ruled by divine providence, my fortune not my own. And save for the flourishing of wisdom and piety in the lands now sworn to the Imperium, that rule would turn to misrule and tyranny. It was a solemn prayer as much as a counterpart to the vow, in truth.
Hamleth, son of Halas, bowed low at the waist, and turned to the left. Away he walked towards a door set in the side of the Halls, to take the ink that would immortalize his words. Keen symbols, applied by sterile needle, marking his being bound by the Oaths. His followers would take different symbols, after they had sworn in turn the lesser oaths. A material record of name and bonds of fealty, stretching all the way from my high seat in Mara to the lowest of farmers in the fields of Romania. That was as it should be.
When the doors swung shut behind him, another man, this one a broad-shouldered warrior with hair cut wild about his face, entered the chamber at the rear from the antechamber.
"Who comes to swear the oaths?"
The herald's voice rang out strong and clear once more, and I settled myself in my seat. There was a long day of this ahead.