GRANTING CHARTERS OF independence to towns like Danzhol’s had been the idea of Bitterblue’s advisers, and King Ror had agreed. During Leck’s time, more than a few lords and ladies of Monsea had behaved badly. It was hard to know which had acted under Leck’s influence, and which had acted out of pure clear-headedness, seeing how much they stood to gain from calculated exploitation while the rest of the kingdom was distracted. But it was apparent, when King Ror visited a few nearby estates, that there were lords and ladies who had set themselves up as kings, taxing and legislating their people
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