The Extraordinary Synod

The Extraordinary Synod is the highest council the White Tower Church convenes at extraordinary times. It follows no regular practice and keeps no fixed dates; it meets only when something serious has happened in the world.

The signal to convene is the bell of the White Tower. On ordinary days the bell is rung by the hour; the Synod's bell is not rung by the hour but struck nine times running, with a gap of two breaths in the middle. The whole of the Pontificate in the middle lands can hear it, and the men who hear it know to have horses made ready.

Who may attend is written in the ceremonial of the Pontificate: the Pontiff, six bishops, and the head or the formal envoy of each of the seven great houses — 14 seats in all. The vote is unnamed; black and white stones are dropped into a bronze urn, and the urn is carried by paladins once round the seats, then tipped out and counted in front of everyone. The man who counts calls no names, only the numbers.

Everyone can see the hole in the arrangement: the Church takes one of the seven seats, and at the same time commands the six bishops. Counted honestly, half the stones in that urn come from one and the same place.

In the 400 years of the Ironhold dynasty the Extraordinary Synod has met 17 times in all. Fourteen of them were over a succession — the kingship vacant, a dispute of bloodline, an accession blocked. The other 3 were over doctrinal deviation, which is a matter still less to be spoken of outside. The records of the agenda for those 3 are sealed in the Pontificate's inner store to this day, with even the names of those who attended pared away.

What the seven realms truly dread is the outcome of the 14 successions. On 9 occasions the Church went round every one of the houses in the end and named the new king itself; and in the remaining 5 it cast the deciding stone in the last round each time.

So whenever the Synod's bell sounds, what the seven great houses hear is more than a summons. They hear a reminder: at this table the Church always keeps the last move in hand.