What Is An Auditor?
On Barrayar, there exist up to eight permanent Auditors and the Ninth Temporary Auditor. These auditors are appointed by the Emperor and speak with his Voice. Voice is a Barrayaran legal concept of proxy which bestows the hierarchical authority of one person upon another of otherwise lesser rank. This bestowed authority is plenipotentiary, but applies only where the person of lesser rank is carrying out his formal duties. Imperial Auditors hold their appointments till death, retirement, impeachment, or until the Emperor rescinds the appointment. Usually, they serve for life.
Imperial Auditors were originally the Emperor's financial auditors: They made sure that the Counts were correctly paying the Emperor his taxes. Because they spoke with the Emperor's Voice, they soon became feared. It is said that bandits would ride point for an Auditor and make sure that no one disturbed him on his way. On Barrayar, the appearance of an Auditor is an immediate concern, and Barrayarans usually spend the few minutes between realizing an auditor is en route and the time he gets there trying to figure out what he had done to be Audited.
On modern Barrayar, Imperial Auditors serve more as Special Investigators. They usually try to solve problems that have escaped conventional problem solving strategies.
From Diplomatic Immunity:
- Bel: "this Emperor's Voice thing sounded like something out of a fairy tale, to me. Until I got to the fine print. Then it sounded like something out of a really gruesome fairy tale."
- Miles: "Oh, did you look up my job description?"
- Bel: "Yeah ... Imperial Auditor's a pretty stunning promotion — whoever handed you that much unsupervised power on a platter has to be almost as much of a lunatic as you are."
Read more about this topic: Barrayaran Imperial Auditor