The court at Whitcombe sat in what had once been a tithe barn, repurposed so long ago that the smell of old grain still lived somewhere under the stone, and Thomas thought, standing at the threshold with Victoria's hand cold in his own, that it was a strange building to decide the fate of a valley in.
The judge was a lean, unhurried man named Corbin, a King's justice riding circuit through the March twice a year, who had heard, by his own dry admission at the opening of the session, "rather more about this valley in the last month than about any other parcel of land in my entire circuit put together." He did not seem pleased by the attention. He seemed, if anything, faintly put upon by it, which Victoria had warned Thomas in advance was likely to cut in their favor — a judge irritated at being made a spectacle of tended to punish whichever party he decided had caused the spectacle.
Alaric was present, seated with the Baron's own advocate rather than speaking for himself, and Thomas caught his eye once across the crowded barn — a brief, unreadable look that carried neither triumph nor apology, only the flat attention of a man watching an argument play out exactly as he'd constructed it.
The Baron's advocate made the case plainly enough: the second witness on the original grant had lacked the standing to witness it, the tenure was therefore never properly settled, and the Crown's own interest in an orderly March required the question be reopened from first principles, under the Baron's supervision, before any further works were permitted to proceed.
It was, Thomas had to admit, listening to it laid out in a stranger's careful, unemotional voice, a considerably more frightening argument than it had seemed reading it secondhand from Elias's notes.
Victoria answered it herself, refusing the advocate Hamo had quietly suggested they hire, on the grounds — stated to Thomas the night before, without room for argument — that a stranger reciting facts would move the judge less than the woman who had lived every one of those facts for three years.
"My lord justice," she began, "I will not dispute that the second witness on our grant lacked proper standing. The facts of Canon Osric's disputed election are not in question, and I have no wish to waste this court's time pretending otherwise." She let that land, watching the judge's faint, surprised approval at an argument that opened by conceding its opponent's strongest point. "What I will dispute is the claim that a defect of form, undiscovered and unused by anyone for three years, ought now to unmake three years of undisputed use. My household has paid its dues, kept its peace, and built upon this land in full view of the Baron's own bailiffs and the Bishop's own chancellor, neither of whom raised this question until it became useful to raise it. I have here a ratification from the Bishop's chancellor himself" — she produced it, and Thomas watched Corbin's eyes narrow with genuine interest for the first time — "confirming, under his own proper authority, that the grant's original intent was sound, whatever defect existed in its form. I ask this court not to reward a defect that harmed no one for three years, discovered only now, in the exact season it might be most useful to the party who found it."
Corbin read the ratification twice, in the particular unhurried silence of a man who had learned, over years of circuit work, not to be rushed by either party's impatience. When he finally looked up, it was toward Alaric's table rather than Victoria's.
"Castellan. I understand this defect was found at your instruction."
"It was, my lord justice." Alaric rose, and his voice, when it came, held none of the advocate's practiced neutrality — something plainer, and to Thomas's surprise, something almost regretful. "I found it because I was asked to look, and because I believed — I still believe, in part — that a hundred years of settled custom in this March deserves more careful guarding than it has lately received. I will not pretend I found nothing troubling in what I discovered at Argenton besides the defect in the grant. I found a currency that holds its value, a medicine that saves children the Baron's own physicians cannot save, and a household that has kept every promise it has made to this March since the day the grant was sealed, defective or not. I brought this matter to the court because I believe the law ought to mean something, even when I would rather it didn't. I leave the weighing of it to you."
It was not, Thomas understood, watching him sit back down, the argument of a man surrendering. It was the argument of a man who had done precisely what he'd told them he would do a season ago — watched, judged honestly, and let the honest judgment cost him whatever it cost him.
Corbin took the better part of an hour to decide, retiring to a side room while the barn filled with the restless murmur of a crowd that had come, Thomas suspected, more for the spectacle than for any real stake in the outcome. When he returned, he read his ruling in the same flat, unhurried voice he'd used for everything else that morning.
"The defect in witnessing is confirmed, and stands as a matter of record. The ratification offered by the Bishop's chancellor is accepted as curing that defect, under the established doctrine allowing subsequent confirmation of a flawed grant where long, undisputed, and beneficial use is shown." A pause, and the barn went very still. "The tenure of Argenton is confirmed as lawfully settled, as of the date of the chancellor's ratification, and this court finds no further cause to disturb it."
Victoria's hand found Thomas's again beneath the table, gripping hard enough to hurt, and neither of them moved until the barn had begun, around them, to empty.
Alaric found them outside, in the cold spring air, and there was no triumph in his face at having lost, no bitterness either — only the same tired, honest weight he'd carried since the day he'd ridden into the valley under a peace banner.
"I meant what I said in there," he told Thomas quietly. "About what you've built. I would ask you to remember, when you think back on today, that I brought the true weakness in your claim to a court rather than simply exploiting it in silence, and let the outcome rest on the law rather than on my own preference. I do not know if that makes me your friend, Lord Thomas. I suspect it does not. But I hope it makes me, at least, an honest enemy, if an enemy is what I remain."
"It does," Thomas said. "For what that's worth."
"It's worth more than you might think, in a March where honest enemies are considerably rarer than dishonest friends." Alaric inclined his head, once, to Victoria, and turned back toward his own waiting horse, leaving them standing together in the barn-yard with the whole valley's fate, for the moment, settled — and the fire, and the horse with the foreign tack, and whatever hand had truly lit the dye shed, still entirely unaccounted for.