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If she ruled formally in this case as Tomanak’s champion, her decision was final. That was one reason champions so seldom made formal rulings. Most of them, like Kaeritha herself, preferred simply to investigate and then to make recommendations to the appropriate local authorities. It prevented bruised feelings, and it allowed for local compromises, which any champion knew were often a truer path to justice than cold, unparsed legalism. Yet Trisu seemed unfazed by the possibility of an adverse decision which would absolutely and permanently foreclose any revisiting of the dispute. Indeed, he seemed to welcome the possibility of a ruling from her, and she wondered if he had deliberately set out to goad her into exactly this course of action.
“The ruling of Scale Balancer’s champion must, of course, be final,” he said at length. “And, to be honest, Milady Champion, even if you should rule against me, simply having the entire matter laid to rest once and for all will be a relief of sorts. Not that I believe you will.”
“We’ll see, Milord,” Kaeritha said. “We’ll see.”
Chapter Thirty-One
“Here it is, Dame Kaeritha.”
Salthan Pickaxe was some sort of distant cousin of Trisu, although he was at least twice Trisu’s age. That kind of relationship between a lord and his chief magistrate was scarcely unheard of, but Kaeritha had been more than a bit surprised by Salthan. He was much more like Sir Altharn then his liege, with a lively sense of humor hiding behind bright blue-gray eyes and a thick, neatly trimmed beard of white-shot auburn. He was also, she’d been amused to note, much more gallant then his cousin. Indeed, he seemed quite taken by the combination of Kaeritha’s dark black hair and sapphire eyes. Which, to be fair, was such an unusual combination among Sothoii that she’d become accustomed to their reaction to her exotic attractiveness.
But Salthan was also at least as intelligent as Trisu, and he seemed just as mystifyingly confident.
Now he took a heavy wooden scroll case from its pigeonhole and eased its contents out into his hand. He was obviously well accustomed to dealing with documents which were no longer in their first youth, but it was unhappily apparent that not all keepers of Lorham’s records had been. Kalatha’s documents were, by and large, in much better shape than Lorham’s, and it showed in the care Salthan took as he slowly and gently unrolled the scroll.
Age-fragile parchment crackled, and Kaeritha felt a tingle of that unease any archivist feels when her examination of ancient materials threatens them with destruction. But Salthan got it open without inflicting major additional damage. He laid it out on the library table, then adjusted the oil lamp’s wick and chimney to provide her with the best possible light.
It was as well he had, Kaeritha thought, leaning forward and squinting at the document before her. It was, as Trisu had said, a duplicate copy of Lord Kellos’ original grant to the war maids, and it was even more faded and difficult to read than the original. No doubt because of the indifferent care it had received, she thought. Still, she could make out the large numeral “3” in the margin, which indicated that it was the third copy made, and she recognized the crabbed, archaic penmanship of the same scribe who’d written out the original.
She ran her eyes down the section which set forth the boundaries of the grant, looking for the language which defined the specific landmarks around the river and the disputed gristmill. It was the least ambiguous and archaic of the entire document, and she might as well start with the parts that were easiest to follow. Besides, the exact boundaries were at the heart of the issue, so—
Ah! Here they were. She bent closer, reading carefully, then stiffened.
That can’t be right, she thought, and reread the section. The words remained stubbornly unchanged, and she frowned in puzzlement. Then she opened the document pouch she’d brought with her and extracted the notes she’d written out so meticulously in Kalatha’s library. She opened them and laid the neatly written pages on the table beside the scroll, comparing the passage she’d copied with the document before her on a word-for-word basis. It was absolutely clear and unambiguous.
“ … and the aforesaid boundary shall run from the east side of Stelham’s Rock to the corner of Haymar’s holding, where it shall turn south at the boundary stone and run two thousand yards across the River Renha to the boundary stone of Thaman Bridlemaker, which shall be the marker for the boundary of the Lord of Lorham.”
That was the exact language from the original grant at Kalatha. But the language in the document Salthan had just laid before her said—
“ … and the aforesaid boundary shall run from the east side of Stelham’s Rock to the corner of Haymar’s holding, where it shall turn south at the boundary stone and run one thousand yards to the north side of the River Renha, the agreed-upon boundary of the Lord of Lorham.”
It wasn’t a minor ambiguity after all, she thought. It was a flat contradiction. If the document before her was accurate, then Trisu was completely correct—the disputed gristmill on the southern bank of the Renha was on his property and always had been. For that matter, Kalatha’s claim to undisputed control of the river’s water rights was also nonexistent, since the river would lie entirely within Trisu’s boundaries, not Kalatha’s. But how could it be accurate? Surely the original grant must supersede any copy in the event of differences between them, and the one before her could only represent a bizarre mistake.
Yet that was preposterous. True, it was a copy, not the original, yet it was scarcely likely that the same scribe who’d written out both documents would have made such a mistake. And it was even less likely that such an error could have been missed in the intense scrutiny all copies of the original grant must have received by those party to it.
Unless one copy was a deliberate forgery, of course … .
But how could that be the case? If this was a counterfeit, it was a remarkably good one. Indeed, it was so good she couldn’t believe anyone in Lorham could have produced it in the first place. However good Salthan might be as a librarian, turning out such a flawless false copy of a document over two centuries old must be well beyond his capabilities. So if a forgery had been produced, who had produced it, and when?
She carefully hid a grimace at the thought, wondering how in the world anyone would ever be able to answer those questions. But answering them could wait at least until she’d determined that they were the only ones which required answers.
She considered her options for a few more seconds, then looked up at Salthan with a painstakingly neutral expression.
“Thank you,” she said, tapping the scroll very carefully with a fingertip. “This is exactly the section of Lord Kellos’ grant I wanted to see. Now, if you please, Lord Trisu also mentioned that you have a copy of King Gartha’s proclamation, as well.”
“Yes, we do, Lady,” Salthan replied. “In fact, it’s in rather more readable condition than Kellos’ grant. Let me get it for you.”
“If you would,” she requested, and leafed through her other notes for the sections of the war maid charter relevant to the other points in dispute between Trisu and his neighbors that she’d copied in Kalatha.
Salthan opened the proper case and unrolled a second scroll, just as carefully as he’d unrolled the first one. He was right; this document was much more legible than the Kalatha land grant, and Kaeritha bent over it, eyes searching for the sections she needed.
She read through them one by one, comparing the language before her to that she had copied in Kalatha, and despite all of her formidable self-control, her frown grew more and more intense as she worked her way through them. Then she sat back and rubbed the tip of her nose, wondering if she looked as perplexed as she thought she did.