Rosalor, Lady BahlmisBorn: 3443  As a Bahlmis daughter, Rosalor was initially expected to make an advantageous marriage, but that didn't work out very well; she was not pretty enough, and far too intelligent, to appeal to the right sort of male. Nor could she make much of a go at the family business, being hopeless at the accounting end of things. Finally she was packed off to the Women's College, where she found her calling as a scholar and remained there for almost forty years: first as a student, then as a Fellow, and finally as Professor of Classics. (N.B.: "Classics," on Aquila, does not mean what it does on Earth [as a field of study]: it includes the literature of the Greek and Roman world but also includes the Great Works of (Western) Earth culture -- those that have survived the centuries -- up to the discovery of space travel.) Rosalor was not precisely happy with the turn of events -- the failed coup staged by most of the senior males of her House -- that suddenly made her the head of the Bahlmis family, with its attendant responsibilities and the concomitant necessity of leaving her post at the College. However, as the daughter of a Great House, family responsibilities came first. She brought to the rebuilding of House Bahlmis all the intensity of focus that she had heretofore devoted to her studies. In this she had the help of her nephew Talaren and various of the other more remote Bahlmis connections, but the House as a whole had been too decimated to maintain control of the trading monopoly that was their traditional role in Aquilan society. The rehabilitation of House Bahlmis, therefore, might aptly be characterized as a succès d'estime. Under Rosalor's leadership, the House has rebuilt its integrity and reputation, but the actual business interests have been largely passed on to the minor Houses that nominally look to Bahlmis (e.g. House Lasse). It is still counted as one of the "Great Houses" but this is mostly by courtesy (very much like Aquila's place in the Imperial Council). Much of the family property was sold off, leaving a modest country estate and the Bahlmis town house. The town house is the setting for the weekly soirées, hosted by Rosalor, that are a centerpiece of the intellectual and social life of the capital. |
