Chapter 67: Kill With A Borrowed Knife

*Prior to the Imperial Assembly Of Law, the North Sea Empire's legal system was a patchwork of numerous local codes, ordinances, and jurisdictions, in multiple languages, and with numerous cultural and religious outlooks. The purpose of the Assembly was to create a pan-imperial legal code that was acceptable to all peoples of the Empire, and, as with all compromises, it generally succeeded at making everyone equally unhappy, even as they recognized the validity of the compromises. Religious law was left in the hands of the specific faiths, making the code officially secular, which pleased no one and yet satisfied everyone. Other elements were picked from the component legal codes, including Eirish Brehon, Jewish Talmudic, Eastern Norse, Berkian Norse, Islamic Fiqh, Anglo-Saxon Common, and others, into a reasonably cohesive whole…*

*… the complex methods of Hooligan title inheritance, after some refinement, became the method by which titular inheritance was managed in the early and middle eras of the Empire, as the Hooligans already had influences from the Brehon, Alban, and Norse legal codes. Pre-Assembly Hooligan title inheritance was a complex mix of elements from all of these sources, an intricate system that can be described as Absolute Primogeniture mixed with Gaelic Tanistry and Norse Elective Monarchy.*

*Before the later refinements were introduced, the system worked as follows: Upon the death or incapacitation of the previous title-holder, the designated heir simply assumed the title (absent legal objections from their new subjects or suspicious circumstances), allowing for a smooth transition of power in most circumstances. The main conflict came with selecting the next designated heir. Heirdom was an elected position in Hooligan law, in line with Gaelic Tanistry, based on suitability and worthiness. Heirs, at the time of selection, had to be adults without physical or mental blemish, descended either from the current or a prior title-holder, and currently a member of the clan that they would be inheriting (Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III's selection at the age of seven years was an anomaly, initiated by his father Stoick to reinforce his statement that he would not remarry as a result of his wife's legal death).*

*Beyond those qualifications, the prospective clan-heir needed to be voted into the position by a majority of the individuals over whom they would rule (typically the members of the clan), with the precise degree of the majority needed depending on the heir's relationship with the current title-holder; a child of the title-holder's spouse needed a simple majority, while the child of a concubine needed six-tenths, and more distant relations needed greater pluralities. Furthermore, the elections were handled in rounds; first the spouse's children would be voted on, one at a time in order of birth, and only if none of them were selected as the clan-heir in two rounds of voting would the elections move to include the concubine's children, and even then, only with the explicit acceptance of the title-holder. From there, if the voting still did not find a suitable candidate, the pool would be expanded to more distant relations, with each voted on in turn until an acceptable candidate was found.*

*While this system functioned well enough for the Hooligan tribe when it was a thousand people or less, it quickly ran into scaling problems as the clans grew, causing fractures to grow, necessitating the various refinements …*

*—Origins Of The Grand Thing, Edinburgh Press, 1631*

## Major Events

* Yngvarr arrives on Berk and tells Stoick what transpired in Norway. At the same time, the priest who visited at Thawfest is en route, seeking to settle there and preach.
* Fishlegs talks to Bladewit about the law restricting who can bond with dragons, and she explains her reasoning.
* Harthacnut gets word of Hiccup's group being spotted in southwest England.
* Constantinople is torn by civil war as the Varangian Guard splits its allegiances between Emperor Michael and the Empresses Zoe and Theodora. Sigurd sides with the empresses, and frees Harald from prison to help him. Pursuing Michael after he kidnaps the sisters, Sigurd confronts him, at which Michael drops them out of the sky.

## Trivia

The titles of this chapter and the next one are references to the Thirty-Six Stratagems, a Chinese book of military strategy.

## Characters

### Humans

* Stoick the Vast
* Bladewit Drorsdóttir
* Fergus Dunbroch
* Naoise Eysteinnsson
* Big-Boobied Bertha
* Elinor Dunbroch
* Cami Berthasdóttir
* Merida Dunbroch
* Hammeredge clan Ingerman
* Yngvarr the Merry
* Fishlegs clan Ingerman
* Harald Sigurdsson
* Snotlout clan Jorgenson
* Kristoffer
* Harthacnut
* Edward of Wessex
* Sweyn
* Michael V Kalaphates
* Zoe Porphyrogenita
* Theodora Porphyrogenita

### Dragons

* Hookfang
* Ourania Aoidos
* Spatha
* Hasta

## Analysis

### Epigraph Tie-In

* The epigraph mentions that as the Hooligan clans grew, so did the fractures due to scaling problems with the Hooligan method of title-inheritance. The chapter reveals that this was explicitly considered by Bladewit as acceptable if it meant protecting the dragons' welfare.