Chapter 115: The Lord Cannot Hear Every Case

Raymond’s solution to Althoff’s lack of a court began with the sort of sentence that sounded reasonable until reality had time to punish it.

"Until we appoint a magistrate and establish proper procedures, send the important disputes to me," he told Alaric and Oren the morning after the property problem exploded.

Alaric paused over his notes and asked exactly what counted as important.

Raymond considered the question for several seconds before answering, "Property involving disputed ownership, significant debts, serious contract disagreements, and anything the Departments cannot resolve without making a legal judgment. We’ll handle those temporarily."

Oren looked uncertain but nodded. Raymond mistook the absence of an immediate disaster for evidence that the arrangement might work.

By the second day, twelve cases waited outside the temporary hearing room. By the fourth, there were twenty-seven. The first cases encouraged the problem because Raymond actually resolved several of them quickly.

A merchant had refused to pay a carpenter for thirty shipping crates after six arrived with cracked boards.

The carpenter demanded the entire agreed price; the merchant wanted to reject all thirty. Raymond inspected the written order, listened to both men, and ruled that the merchant would pay for the twenty-four usable crates while the carpenter could repair or replace the damaged six before receiving the remainder.

Both men grumbled, neither looked particularly happy, and Raymond considered that a promising sign.

Then an apprentice accused a blacksmith of withholding two weeks of wages. The blacksmith produced records showing the boy had missed several days, while three other apprentices confirmed that the master had nevertheless withheld more than the missed work justified.

Raymond ordered the balance paid. By evening, people in the market were already saying Lord Althoff himself was hearing complaints.

That was when the phrase "important disputes" apparently changed meaning. A farmer arrived accusing his neighbor of moving three boundary stones during the night. Two brothers appeared over an unpaid loan neither had written down.

A woman demanded compensation because her neighbor’s chickens had escaped and destroyed a vegetable patch. Two men brought an ox to the castle courtyard because each insisted it belonged to him, and neither trusted the other to retain possession while the matter was heard.

Raymond stared through the window at the animal chewing peacefully beside a Household Knight and asked Alaric, "Why is there an ox outside my castle?"

Alaric did not look up from the docket as he answered, "Evidence, my Lord."

Raymond slowly turned toward him. "The ox is evidence?"

Alaric finally allowed himself the smallest smile. "Apparently very important evidence."

Raymond looked back outside and muttered, "I have made a terrible mistake."

Unfortunately, admitting that did not make the queue disappear. People had discovered a simple pattern: if their disagreement sounded sufficiently serious, persistent, or complicated, there was a chance it would reach Raymond.

Some bypassed Departments entirely and came directly to the castle. Others exaggerated ordinary disputes because "Lord Althoff is hearing cases" had spread through the city faster than any administrative notice could correct it.

Lily began sorting petition slips with an expression of increasing disbelief.

"This one says a brewer sold him weak ale and refuses to return his money," she said, holding up a sheet.

Raymond kept signing construction approvals and replied, "Trade Department."

Lily picked up another and told him, "A man says his neighbor’s dog keeps digging beneath his fence."

Raymond waved that one away. "Not me."

Lily lifted a third and struggled not to laugh. "Someone wants you to decide whether a pear tree belongs to him or his sister because the trunk is on her land but most of the branches hang over his."

Raymond stopped writing, stared at her, and answered, "Especially not me."

The humor disappeared two days later when Raymond made the mistake that finally exposed the weakness in the entire arrangement.

The case involved an old workshop in the Historical Core claimed by a widow named Marta Eren and a cooper named Jorren Pell. Marta testified that the workshop had belonged to her late husband, who died during winter, and that Jorren had begun using it only after the family fled during the Beast Tide.

Jorren insisted he had purchased the building from Marta’s husband the previous autumn for sixty Gold Coins, paid in two installments, but admitted there was no written contract.

He produced one witness, a drinking companion who claimed to have seen money change hands. Marta produced three neighbors who remembered her husband continuing to call the workshop his own afterward.

The building also remained associated with the Eren household in surviving local tax records.

Everything Raymond could see favored Marta. He ruled that the workshop remained part of her husband’s estate and ordered Jorren to vacate within seven days, while allowing him to remove his tools and movable property.

Jorren protested that he had paid for the place, but Raymond had no receipt, no contract, no independent record of the sale, and only one questionable witness against several people and an existing tax record.

"I cannot treat an undocumented claim as stronger than every record and witness opposing it," Raymond told him firmly. "If you discover additional evidence, bring it to the Administration. Until then, the workshop returns to Marta Eren’s estate."

Three days later, Oren entered Raymond’s study carrying a ledger and wearing an expression Raymond had learned to distrust.

Raymond set aside his construction report and asked, "What did I do?"

Oren hesitated before placing the ledger on the desk. "We found an older market record while reviewing storage documents from before winter, my Lord. Jorren Pell paid thirty Gold Coins to Eren in late autumn. The payment was recorded because Eren used part of it to settle an outstanding materials debt with a local timber merchant that same day."

Raymond frowned and pointed out, "That proves one payment. Jorren claimed sixty."

Oren nodded. "Yes, my Lord, but we also found the merchant who delivered new cooperage equipment to Jorren shortly afterward. He remembers helping move it into that workshop while Eren was present. More importantly, Marta Eren’s eldest son remembers his father telling him the workshop had been sold."

Raymond leaned back slowly. None of the new evidence alone was perfect.

Together, it changed the case substantially. "So I may have given a sold workshop back to the seller’s estate."

Oren answered carefully, "It appears possible, my Lord."

Raymond rubbed his forehead and asked whether Jorren had already begun moving out. Oren confirmed that he had obeyed the ruling the previous morning.

That afternoon Raymond summoned both parties again. He did not pretend his title made his first decision infallible.

Instead, he explained the newly discovered evidence, suspended his previous order, restored Jorren’s temporary possession, and instructed Oren to investigate the alleged second payment before any permanent ownership registration occurred. Marta was unhappy.

Jorren was furious and demanded to know why nobody had searched for this evidence before Raymond ruled.

Raymond had no clever answer available, so he gave him the correct one. "Because I ruled before we had a proper process for finding it. That was my mistake."

The room became quiet enough that Raymond could hear papers shifting beneath Oren’s hand.

Raymond looked directly at Jorren and continued, "You should not lose property because I happened to hear your case before someone searched the right ledger. We will determine what happened, collect the remaining evidence, and make another decision from a complete record. Until then, neither side will sell, damage, or transfer the workshop."

Jorren’s anger did not disappear, but after several seconds he lowered his head and accepted the temporary ruling.

After they left, Raymond remained seated with Oren and Alaric.

"Justice cannot depend on whether I happen to be clever that morning," he said, staring at the abandoned case papers.

Alaric folded his hands and replied, "Then we stop treating every unresolved dispute as a question requiring the lord."

Raymond nodded. He had spent weeks learning the same lesson in administration, construction, logistics, and trade, yet somehow believed judgment could temporarily escape it.

A territory of five thousand people could not operate by sending every contested debt, broken contract, inheritance fight, assault complaint, damaged shipment, wandering chicken, and disputed ox uphill until Raymond produced an answer.

They designed something deliberately small. Althoff would establish a City Magistrate Court rather than inventing an enormous judicial hierarchy overnight.

One magistrate would hear ordinary civil disputes, debts, contracts, property claims, minor offenses, compensation disputes, and other local cases.

Clerks would register every case and preserve written judgments. Claimants would submit available documents before hearings. Witness names and testimony would be recorded.

Relevant Departments could provide registry, survey, tax, commercial, or inspection records. Both parties would be allowed to examine the claims against them and present evidence before a ruling was issued.

Serious crimes would remain under higher territorial authority, while appeals from the magistrate could eventually reach Raymond when sufficient grounds existed.

Raymond insisted on one additional rule as Alaric drafted the framework.

"A person does not get an appeal simply because they dislike losing," he said, tapping the parchment. "There needs to be a reason. New evidence, procedural failure, important evidence ignored, authority exceeded, something identifiable."

Oren agreed and suggested that judgments should state what evidence had been relied upon so later reviews could determine how the decision had been reached.

Raymond immediately pointed at him. "That. Write that down before I forget and accidentally become the legal system again."

Alaric’s mouth twitched as he added the requirement, while Oren remarked that they would also need someone competent enough to serve as magistrate.

Raymond sighed. "Of course we do. Apparently buildings are the easy part of building a city."

The next morning, notices announcing the creation of the City Magistrate Court went to the Central Market, Civil Registry, Administration buildings, and major residential areas.

The court did not possess centuries of law, ranks of judges, or shelves of perfect legal codes. It had one hearing chamber being prepared, several clerks reassigned from the Administration, procedures still being written, and a magistrate position that needed to be filled carefully.

It was incomplete, but for the first time Althoff was creating somewhere disagreements could be resolved without five thousand people deciding the shortest route to justice ended at Raymond’s desk.

As attendants carried the remaining petition stacks from his study, Lily discovered one forgotten slip beneath a ledger.

She read it, blinked, and looked toward Raymond with barely concealed amusement. "My Lord, this man says his neighbor’s rooster wakes him before sunrise and wants compensation."

Raymond pointed firmly toward the door and replied, "Magistrate."

Lily’s smile widened as she reminded him, "The court isn’t open yet, my Lord."

Raymond stared at the petition for a long moment before pushing his chair back toward the construction reports he had neglected for four days.

"Then the rooster can wait."