Government in Malfa

The Maveren are democratic about issues pertaining to the Maveren; all Maveren in Malfa—about 250 in total—vote on decisions. The combined body of Maveren is called the Summing; thus they meet to vote in Summing House, the closest thing to a government building in Malfa.
Issues that don't immediately pertain to the Maveren—which includes most issues in Malfa, these days—are handled by their thralls on their behalf. For this reason, continuing government roles in Malfa are all thrall roles, also based in Summing House. Now that Malfa consists largely of non-Maveren, non-thrall inhabitants, these roles have a considerable amount of power, but only at the pleasure of the Maveren.
Non-Maveren non-thralls are called autonomies. By Maveren custom, they are not citizens and have no inherent rights, despite making up about 90% of the population.

Governmental/communal thrall roles

Thralls are in service to particular Houses or individual Maveren (see Thrall roles). By tradition, thralls in some households perform roles for all of Malfa, most importantly various roles for the Summing (that is, management positions in Malfa government). These vary in nature; some relatively minor roles are always form the same household, like the Piscatur (who oversees Malfa's fish farm ). By contrast, the three main Summing positions rotate.
Vocatur (Speaker) – Speaks for the Maveren: the administrator who works out the details of how the Maveren’s decisions will work. More or less the executive role in government.
Committur (Seneschal) – Acts for the Maveren: manages infrastructure. If the vocatur is the executive, the committur is the administrator. In general, the committur of Malfa is called seneschal, and the committur of an individual House is called steward.
Rapparandur (Ombud) – Speaks to the Maveren: this is the ombud to whom free people appeal with legal problems.

Any large-scale decision in Malfa goes like this

1. the Maveren vote on what will happen
2. the vocatur figures out how it’ll work
3. the committur makes it work
4. the rapparandur reports back on how well it’s working

The vocatur, committur, and rapparandur can’t come from the same House, and they can’t be succeeded in the same position by someone from the same House. They’re appointed and dismissed at the pleasure of the Maveren (by vote). Generally people hold these positions for years, but sometimes turnover can be very quick, in months or weeks.
Vocatur and rapparandur were originally more ceremonial roles, but as Malfa grew they took on more of an administrative character.

Current officers of the Summing

The current vocatur is from Veithur House, and has been in the role for years. He is arrogant, high-handed, and dismissive of the “rights” of anyone who isn’t Maveren or their thralls. Sadly for those who dislike that sort of thing, he’s also a very competent administrator. The Maveren, being arrogant and high-handed themselves, have no interest in replacing him.
The current committur is from Hejmar House. She is also competent, and more genial than her colleague. She’s moderately corrupt, but only in the usual ways; there’s a method to life in Malfa, and one of them is that the committur gets kickbacks from the merchants in return for favoured status.
The current referendar is a recent appointment, after some political infighting. He’s from Sjolfri House, a solid middle-aged administrator who takes his role as representative of Malfa’s free people seriously. He would like to make changes to the way things run in Malfa, but he is also a cautious long-term thinker. His patron Heron, one of the Sjolfri Maveren, is an enthusiastic reformer with much less political wisdom, and is always bugging the referendar on behalf of this or that pet project.