To have any chance of affecting their surrounds, calendars need money and political clout, and those with high standing socially possess with these attributes natively. A clave that does not have ranking gentry or nobility at its head and core, or at least as a sponsor, will most certainly be marginalized. Augusts are seconded by their laudes, who are their mouthpieces and their long reach. With a well-organized and talented clave with her, an august can be a daunting and influential figure in Imperial politics and society. ROSSAMÜND was woken by a heavy pounding on his cell door and a rough voice crying, “A lamp! A lamp to light your path! Up, you lounging lumps! Up and at ’em—it’s a fine day.” It took a few nauseated moments for the prentice to realize he was not in fact being boiled alive in an enormous bottomless cauldron, but lay pinned in tangled blankets on a lumpy horsehair mattress in a freezing cell in the basements of the Imperial outpost of Winstermill. As the rousing groans of the other prentices coughed across the gap between cells, Rossamünd dragged the small chest away from the cell door.
