The Hedges

A lattice of hedgerow country, banks, ditches, and thickets threading between the Heartland and half the Kingdom's other provinces — less a territory than everyone's shared border. The Cait Sith hold it, which suits them: they are hunters, and the Hedges are one enormous ambush.

Geography

Linear rather than areal. The province's 12 km² are strung out along hundreds of kilometers of boundary, which makes it impossible to invade, impossible to administer, and impossible to avoid.

Mousehold

A rowdy sprawl at the junction of the Nine Roads that functions as the Kingdom's inland port, its livestock market, and its rumor exchange. Because everything moving between provinces passes through it, the Cait Sith know more about the Kingdom's traffic than the Queen's own customs officials, and sell that knowledge cheerfully to everyone, including the customs officials.

The Hunting Question

The Hedges teem with mice, voles, beetles, and songbirds — all of them speaking people — and the Cait Sith hunt them, legally, as game. Nobody at court considers this a crime. Several Cait Sith, increasingly, do, and the resulting argument inside Mousehold is the closest thing the Kingdom has to an abolition movement.