Chapter 27 — The Question of Inheritance
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 4
Edmund was instantly struck dumb, as though unable to determine whether Gao Yang meant these words in earnest; yet he forced a smile and answered: "Your title and fief passed after your death to your descendants, and thereafter your descendants transgressed the laws of the kingdom and were unable to retain their title and fief. All of this was carried out within the framework of the kingdom's law..."
Gao Yang adjusted his posture, leaned toward Edmund, and said with a look half-smile and half-not: "Yes—according to the law of the kingdom. But according to the law, my heirs could only fully inherit my title and fief after my death; while I live, only my eldest son holds my next-lower title and possesses a limited 'legal power of proxy' (note), and all Cecil offspring besides the eldest son hold noble status alone, without any legal power. Plainly, I am alive now—and there is not a single article in Ansel's law that mentions how a man who has died and come back to life is to be defined with respect to when his right of inheritance took effect and when it lapsed, nor how the contradictions arising between the taking effect and the lapsing are to be defined."
(Legal power of proxy: in Ansel's law, the right of a qualified noble offspring to act in the family's name, enjoying corresponding privileges and bearing corresponding risks and liabilities.)
Edmund: "?!"
Gao Yang spread his hands: "So the very first step does not stand—the inheritance is void. That Grumman of a hundred years ago ought to have been neither marquis nor possessed of any legal power of proxy over the Cecil family. You merely took from the hands of a man who had no right of inheritance whatsoever something that was never in his hands to begin with."
Rebecca stared blankly at her own ancestor, never having imagined such an maneuver was possible; while Amber, who was in the adjoining room with her ear pressed to the wall, turned her head and looked at Sir Byron: "Amazing—he's even more shameless than I am!"
Prince Edmund, before Gao Yang, was by now on the verge of his expression collapsing entirely. His mouth twitched, and after a long while he squeezed out a sentence: "But when the law was made, who could have foreseen that you would suddenly come back to life... And besides, you truly did die once."
"Then when you speak with me, set logic and regularity aside for now—they ceased to hold the moment I heaved the coffin lid off," Gao Yang laughed. "Of course I am not after those fiefs already taken away, nor the titles of my descendants. I know all about what that spendthrift did a hundred years ago—had it been me, I'd have thrashed him dead myself; the royal house's judgment on the matter was not wrong, and I do not mean to overturn it. I only want you to know that if I truly wished to haggle over the wording of the kingdom's code with you regarding the Cecil family's inheritance interests, there is really far too much trickery to drag back and forth. After all, who made it so that a whole heap of provisions on the question of inheritance are built around whether I am dead or not?"
"All right, all right, I understand," Edmund raised his hands in surrender. "You said just now that the people of seven hundred years ago spoke frankly and were unskilled at beating about the bush, but by the look of it you are likely harder to deal with than my debate tutor."
"I have not only lived through Ansel's savage age—I have lived through the Gondor Empire at its very height, so do not underestimate the ancients of seven hundred years ago," Gao Yang said with a curl of his lip. "In our savage days we drank blood and ate raw flesh; in our elegant days we could give a single wine thirty-six names, and furnish each name with a sonnet."
"...That is indeed formidable," Edmund said, wholly convinced. "Then may we speak in detail about the matter you are to discuss with my father at noon tomorrow..."