3.f. But what if an arrogant noble starts to persuade her/him? Of what? The MC’s superiority? Breden’s had quite enough of that already, thank you.
And how will s/he deal with being rejected? That’s a great question. 
As the relationship wasn’t designed around yaoi tropes, no one’s seme or uke.
bce. Ok, I’ll offer the hire – it’ll increase the number of choices there above two. She’ll decline outright, not rob you. She’s a pro.
4.a.Yebben and Elery are 17. The Theurges don’t usually Harrow kids before they’ve reached their full growth; it’s supposedly inefficient blood-wise, and inconsistent with the Canon’s strong line against child sacrifice. But they’ll do it as a punishment for lawbreaking (e.g. Pin)–that’s not seen as “sacrifice”, and thus consistent with Canon.
5.I’ll have a look at the cases where a nationalist character calls Shayard a province. You’re right that that may not be appropriate.
6.a. The aristos still control food distribution-- a barn on their land which they can empty or lock at any time. It’s just under normal circumstances they don’t need to bother their steward with weekly grain handouts, and it gives helot elders something meaningful to manage.
c A child known to be born from an aristo-helot union would be a helot. In some places, the Ecclesiasts would insist on sterilization of the child, to keep unnatural noble blood from permeating further into the helot population (which would of course make the child’s late teenage harrowing likely). In other places which are less hysterical about blood purity, the kid would just be another helot.
As in most CoGs, there are a bazillion variables that don’t show up on the stats screen. WinterHawk has summed up the major ones that readers can follow in the narrative and will affect plot. As I integrate notoriety, I’ll make the signals for that clearer too.
And I’m a third gen Swedish-American and first gen Americo-British immigrant.