Albion’s Council is a rather unusual institution. What else do you call a group where everyone on it is arguably a twenty-first part of a king, at least in a ritual sense? Time for a blog post with a bit more about the Council. (And psst, it’s going to be relevant in Grown Wise, coming out on May 2nd, 2025.)
The beginning
Albion’s Council began because of the need for the Pact. The forming of nations is a complicated question, and the flow of the land magic is an even more complicated one. (This would be why I am reading a whole lot of British history right now.)
By the late 1400s, the land magic was firmly in the hands of the king or his chosen representatives. That held up for a good while, even through the tumult of the Wars of the Roses. But in early 1484, it became clear that it was not a long-term solution. (Why? Well, that’s part of what I’ll be writing about when I get writing the series in the 1480s that I’m doing all this research for. More on that below.)
At that point, Richard III (who became king at that point, rather than his nephew), began to make arrangements with the Fatae for a new approach to handling a number of things about Britain’s magic, leading to what Albion refers to as the Pact. That set of agreements – functionally a treaty between the humans and Fatae of England and Wales – did a lot of things. But one of the pieces was that responsibility for the land magic on a country level changed.
Individual areas had lords – or ladies – responsible for their particular land magic. This roughly maps to the area of about half a county in England. (In Wales and later in Scotland, the areas are a little more complex to map.) But following the Pact, instead of the King being responsible for managing the land magic on a national level, the Council had that responsibility. There’s a problem here? Someone from the Council gets to figure it out. There’s a drought? It’s up to the Council to figure out negotiations of how to help the land magic parts of that. (Can’t change the weather reliably, but magic might be able to help avoid flooding, direct water in the places it’s needed, and so on.)
The structure of the Council
Albion’s Council has, fundamentally, an unusual structure. It’s actually drawing on successful Councils established prior to the Pact (notably the Council of the North. That was established by Richard III before he was king. It was based in part of the Council of Wales and the Marches, established by his brother Edward IV. Both groups were administrative bodies, intended to improve judicial access and prompt legal action. They included key figures in the relevant areas – many of whom were not particularly allied or amenable to each other.
In Albion’s Council, while there is a nod to seniority on the Council when needed, the members are peers. The Council Head chosen through more or less the same method as becoming a member of the Council. (The nod to seniority is handy when they all have to line up to do something specific. That includes things such as greeting people during the formal offerings and reports at the solstices.)
Members serve until they die or retire. In some periods, retirement is more common, in others dying in service is. (This also depends on how many dangerous things the Council members are directly involved in.) Ideally, there are twenty-one members. But it’s common for a seat to be empty for a few months after someone dies or retires. Sometimes a seat has remained empty for longer – a year or two, depending on the circumstances involved.
The Council Keep, Dinas Emrys
Dinas Emrys is a real castle – or at least it was, in our world. Built at the site that some folklore names as the location where Merlin uncovered the red and white dragons battling in a deep pool of water, it stands up in Gwynedd in northern Wales. It became a ruin in our timeline and world, but in Albion, it’s been maintained and the various amenities expanded.
The Keep has a tower that goes up for several floors above the rest of the building. This is anchored with powerful magic, and is the location of the challenges. The rest of the Keep includes a great hall, large enough to gather hundreds of people when needed. There are rooms for meetings, smaller gatherings, and various administrative tasks. There’s a staff to provide food and to keep the public rooms clean and tidy – as well as do the extensive rearrangement of furniture needed for some events.
Upstairs on the first floor, there are some guest rooms (in case anyone needs to stay overnight during emergencies). The Council members each have small private offices. This floor also has the Council library, workrooms and other magical spaces. The rest of the Keep has additional storage, including a fair amount of foot storage space. The pool at the base of the tower provides fresh water, currently free of dragons.
Challenging for the Council
Council Challenges happen when a member dies or retires. Because it takes some time for Challengers to make preparations, usually the Challenge is a month to three months later. (If someone knows they’re planning on retiring, there’s less of a gap in time). The date for the Challenge has some consideration for astrological timing, but there are not specific requirements. It is often a full or new moon, if there’s one at a suitable time, for example. Certain astrological and astronomical events are avoided, like eclipses.
Preparing
People prepare in a vast range of ways. In the Challenges we’ve seen in text so far, a lot of people go to a great deal of trouble to dress for a fight. They wear fancy protective magical clothing, commission talismans for specific needs (that also has a lead time), and so on. Others don’t do that.
In the modern era, people put forward their name or are sponsored by an existing member. They show up on the night, with their chosen guests. Those usually involve parents, apprentice masters or mistresses, close friends, other family members, and so on. It can be a time of pomp and circumstance. The Challengers are welcome, they draw lots for the order they’ll enter the Challenge. It’s most common for there to be four to six Challengers. More is possible, but the combination of the role, the intimidating aspects of the Challenge, and what people think is needed for preparation keep the numbers somewhat reasonable.
The Challenge itself
They’re escorted upstairs, and one by one, they open the door at the top of the tower, and go on. The unsuccessful Challengers emerge in an unpredictable order (it’s not first in, first out). At some point in the process, the successful Challenger (if there is one) comes out, and is taken somewhere to wait if there are others still to come out. Sometimes, there is no successful Challenger.
It is possible to be an unsuccessful Challenger and later make a successful Challenge. We’ve seen that in the current books in Garin Fortier, Theo Carrington, and Orion Sisley.
The experience is unique to the individual – I’ll be noting books where we see the experience from the inside below. For many decades, there was basically nil conversation about the initiatory experience of the Challenge by anyone. That was true even when married couples (Garin and Livia Fortier, Hesperidon and Silvia Warren) or siblings (Paulus and Troilus Watts) were on the Council at the same time. Cyrus and Mabyn talk about it a bit more, once they become involved.
Occasionally, there is a death – not very often, but often enough people are concerned about it. It’s more common for there to be some degree of injury, from Challengers biting off more than was sensible in some form. Scratches, cuts, and so on are the most common, but the Council has a Healer on hand to tend to people as needed.
The process for choosing a Council Head works roughly the same way: those interested in the position enter the tower room. One of them comes out with the white rose pin that indicates they are Head now. (As Alexander says to Cyrus at various points: “That’s why you have the shiny pin and all the headaches.”)
The Council over time
The Council has a clear focus, but what that looks like and means changes over time. Above all, the Council has to react and change in response to what’s going on in Albion (and more broadly in the British Isles and in Europe).
At this point, I’ve written about four different Heads of the Council, and Claiming the Tower (Hereswith’s romance in 1854) has mentions of a fifth.
Hereswith Rowan
Hereswith becomes Head of the Council in 1871, well into the period where the Council is entirely made up of people who attended Schola. Unlike many on the Council, however, Hereswith was in Horse House. She brings a different approach to how she leads the Council, both because of that and because of her prior life in diplomatic circles in Albion and in Britain. She’s Head until her death in 1896.
She’s able to move the Council from some of the more hidebound approaches of the Victorian period to that point into something that’s more deliberately collaborative and stable. You can see her as Head in the Mysterious Fields trilogy. We’ll be seeing more of her as a member of the Council in several upcoming books.
Those include Claiming the Tower (1854, which includes her Challenge), a second romance in the 1860s, and a novella planned for the late 1870s. (For those who’ve read the trilogy, that’s partly because I wanted more time with Metaia and Owain.)
Hesperidon Warren
Hesperidon comes from a long line of the Great Families, the sort who go into Fox House and come out convinced they rule the world. He has an absolute idea about how things should work, and does not take advice well. He is Head of the Council from 1896 to 1932 and his death. That means he’s Head during the 1920s books. We see Cyrus and Mabyn (both on the Council) during this period in The Hare and The Oak.
He does have his virtues, though they have not been very present on the page so far. He is in fact deeply concerned on the impact of the industrial revolution on the land, and that’s a sensible concern. However, his rigidity about proper process, about who should get to do valued tasks, and whether trust is a thing that might possibly exist are all problems. For him, and for most people around him.
Cyrus Smythe-Clive
Cyrus’s challenge is in Silent Circuit (the middle book of the Mysterious Fields trilogy). He’s Head from 1932 until he retires in 1946. It’s under Cyrus’s leadership that the Council is dragged (sometimes kicking and screaming or at least arguing loudly) into more collaboration again. He has some help, both from Mabyn and from Alexander Landry.
Best Foot Forward touches on some of the Council aspects in this period. Upon A Summer’s Day has another Challenge (from the Challenger’s perspective), and Three Graces shows another from the outside.
Over on Patreon, the Ritual Time series of extras follows Cyrus through his time as Head (more or less one story per year). You can do a week free trial, or it’s absolutely fine with me to subscribe briefly, read everything of interest, and disappear again. This series of extras will get some additional editing and be available to everyone in due course.
Silvia Warren
Silvia becomes Head in 1946. She’s the (much younger) third wife of Hesperidon Warren, and they had 8 years on the Council together after her own Challenge. She’s 62 when she becomes Head, giving her some time to establish some more stability in the wake of the Second World War.
Grown Wise has a Challenge during her time as Head, with some interesting results.
Future explorations
We have more coming about the Council! That’s going to include the last book in the Liminal Mysteries series (set in 1950), as well as two novels and probably a novella including Hereswith, her partners, and others on the Council in 1854, sometime around 1860, and in the late 1870s.
I’m also slowly working my way through the necessary research to write a series about the time of the Pact. That’s obviously going to have a great deal about the formation of the Council. I don’t even remotely have a date for that yet, but I’m hoping to be able to start the writing toward the end of 2026. We’ll see how that goes.