Ministry of Music, The Bodies of the Emperor

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FREEWRITE

The Minister of Palace Music, in those days one of the best funded independent execuative offices in the imperial burracracy, oversaw all the entertainments on offer for the satisfaction of the imperial court, including operas, hunting expeditions, circuses, beast fights or Veterinary Hotels as the character of this emperor or that may move tat Serene Person to add to the Palace dole, recitals of voice, instrument, or both, handled the patronage of the imperial person himself of Poets, painters, astronomers, zoologists, philosophers, courtisans, and martial artists from which it played a key role in the selection of the imperial guard, kept the schedule for a great number of the palace's shrines, altars, feasts, cults, and priesthoods under the rather dubias auspices of it's double role as provisioner of sacramental chanters and singers through the Choir Master Spiritual and Choir Master General one the one hand and the Quartermaster of Smells and Bells, charged with keeping every possible kind of incense, frankincense, holy wood, sacred flower, silver windchimes, brass gongs, singing bowls and hallucinatory oils, costumes and regalia, materials both raw and finished, illustrious crowns, impossibly entangled keys, miraculating chains and practically every over kind of relic of holy or profane or sublime or some other imponderable quality, save for two: first, anything connected to the actual or purported remains of a saint, sage, sadhu, shaman, medicine woman, wise man, prophet, messiah, apostle, disciple, or otherwise significant figure in Holy Repose which fall under the care of the Treasury's Ostuaries Office and second, anything which can be plausibly argued by the Soliciter in Chief of the Imperial Library of Sacred Books to function as a holy text, which are overseen by the same. in short, the Ministry of Music and all it's envoys, outposts, advisors, it's voting and observing membership in any number of formal and semi formal governmental entities, has made a not quite spoken but nearly always quite aggressively pursued policy of becoming a grab bag department, happy to take up any role however humble or vaunted and the various streams of finding, access, favors, appointments, debts and capital which might accrue to such such responsibilities, and by the leveraging, maximizing, synthesizing, subdividing and trading those resources, while hardly ever ceding the principal function from which such dividends flow, there bymaking the Ministry of Music the quintessentially indispensable burracracy, with ten fingers in every pie. this is not to say that the Minister of Palace Music, of any other particular office or person within the ministry, necessarily exerts all of that influence towards an agenda of their choosing. in some administrations the ministry is balkanized by bitter subdivisions, factions, school, movements, the coattails of this rising star and the vulture's circles which appear like halos over the visage of an August and loyal civil servant whenever someone with the necessary influence has decided to strike and peal away this fiefdom or that as part of their own pilgrimage through that enchanting, intoxicating agency.

But in those days when Tassius was Regent from the Ten-Day Investature Feast leading up to his Inauguration until the Nine Night Battle 14 years into Tassius' reign when nearly the entirty of his administration forcibly resigned, the regent's mentor and maternal cousin/paternal uncle, the esteemed professor of military musical history Arch-Count Austin Øto of the Triple City Meza, Alq Quetiabar Ürz was the Minister of Music and the entire Ministry was sympatico with Arch-Count Øto's will. as well they should be, in the opinion of the Minister. Øto's cousin-nephew took to the regency on less then stable financial footing and for the first five years of the reign at least,, the entirety of the budget of the Ministry was underwriting and ultimately paid for by donation of the ArchCount's own purse, along with several other departments besides. in return, he set policy for whole worlds scattered across seven star systems.

when it was announced that the regent was set to embark on a years long tour of the empire beginning on their fifth anniversary of taking office (a bold prospect when the courters openly doubted the dynasty, much less it's sitting regent, would actually outlast the month) it was Otø who oversaw preperation for three grand tour, who saw to the administration of both the imperial march and the palace in the regent's absence. the itinerary included city states spread across the orbits of twenty moons and aristocratic manor-worlds, the Galaxy Execuative Offices of banks and guilds and mercenary companies and religious orders and crime syndicates which would decide whether the regency, the dynasty, and the empire would subsist or topple.

following the success of the tour, which concluded more than five years behind it's two year two month schedule, the ArchCount was promoted to Secretary of Rites while maintaining the Music portfolio, much of which would continue to be delegated through the offices of his own household, since his own house continued to pay the costs of the ministry and host the imperial court during it's exile forced vacation while the imperial home world was administered by forces of the Revolution.

during this time the regent offered to promote his avuncular benefactor to the status of Duke or Prince or even King, and most suspected that the regent would not refuse if Øto demanded to be made co regent or accede to the imperial throne directly. this Øto never consented to. he was proud and visable in his association with the triple city. each city had some measure of independence from the empire as well as influence with it. by all rights each city should belong to a different march if not duchy. by uniting all three under a single extraordinary count, the emperor had both declared and recognized the special role which the House of Øto played in regulating the arteries of empire to not from on high but from the coordinated collection of local offices, titles, governments and commissions.

to maintain both control and separation of the three cities, all Intercity trade technically took place between the governments of each city prior to any transaction from one citizen, corporation, utility, etc. to another. by holding the positions of head of State and governance in each of the cities separately, the House of Øto held enough critical points of trade to bankroll much of the imperial government for close to a decade and a half. when the Nine Nights occurred 14 years into the regency the estate of the ArchCount ceased honoring checks made out by the ministry, not to resume until a new Minister of Palace Music was confirmed. when a junior flunky of the junta behind the coup was named to the post, the ArchCount congratulated him but instead of honoring the check asked for a list of qualifications. when no qualifications were offered he asked for a list of references, then an answer to several questionnaires, all for the purpose of certifying if this really was the Minister of Palace Music or a pretender, since they themselves had not heard back from the emperor's regent about the appointment.

In those days, when the incarnate Person of the Emperor of 12 cybernetically wired clones known collectively as Destiniumomnia the Twelve, individually referred to by a series of numbers and symbols and a date. each clone produced throughout its life a gradually transforming tattoo under the wrist and ankles

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