Leo snagged a honeyed apple with a stick through it from a vendor and bit the outside, feeling some of the honey get on his fingers and onto his cheek. He dropped a copper coin on the cheap wooden table of the vendor stall. The cute elf behind it smiled and bowed deeply, hand over heart, then called out “Good luck today, King Leo! We love you!”
“Thanks,” Leo said, quipping in his mind, I love you too, random citizen!
As Leo stared up at the new courthouse, he reflected that while it was indeed an important day for Leo—and his elf empire, the Kingdom of Averia—it didn’t feel meaningful in the way a lot of other days had. His first year on Toth had been a series of life-and-death situations. A merely important day was still, even a year from the last one, still a relaxing breath of fresh air. Leo and his closest friends would still be around to fix things if today went wrong, after all. That was different and new.
Leo glanced up at Ygg’drasil, his over two hundred feet tall world tree, darkly reflecting about how days like this might become rare again soon. But he put it from his mind to focus on the still important challenge in front of him.
After quickly eating his apple and tossing it in the new public trash bin—and trying and failing to completely clean his fingers—Leo walked up the gleaming marble stairs of the courthouse between the statues of two gods, one to either side. He licked at his hands the whole way.
One of the statues, to the right, was of Kellen, god of justice. He was depicted as a young human dressed in armor with a sword in one hand, scales in the other, and a third eye. It was an interesting contrast to Leo—it somehow matched the sword and scales of lady justice from his homeland on earth, but went the exact opposite direction from the blindfold. Instead of justice being blind, it implied justice here was all knowing and correct—he had asked quite a few people, from Lily to the priests of the god, about it. All agreed that this was the meaning.
The second statue was of Turin Corvuri the Law Giver. He was portrayed as an older elf, dressed in robes and carrying a huge tablet of laws. It reminded Leo of Moses, although the original statue—the usual way Turin Corvuri was portrayed—also carried shackles. Leo had been assured it meant to be bound to the law, but it wasn’t imagery he wanted associated with his empire. The architect—and the local head priest of Turin Corvuri, a human man by the name of Jack Palazzi of Steelport—had both accepted the change.
Leo paused at the top of the stairs, where he found a vision waiting for him—his fiancée, Lilianae Kuvella ap Willowynd, more commonly known as just Lily. Lily was beautiful beyond words, a vision of an air-brushed Hollywood model. She had metallic silver hair that hung to her waist, held in place by a gold circlet. Her face was round, soft, and feminine. Inquisitive pale blue eyes surveyed the world, rarely still, from beneath eyebrows as silver as her hair. She gave Leo a brilliant smile and ran her fingers through her hair and along her long ear as she did.
Today, she appeared to be dressed in her most common outfit—an intricately stitched white dress that hung over her in an extremely flattering manner, hugging her subdued curves close. Lily always appeared beyond beautiful, but she usually also appeared quite thin.
But now was different. She was very clearly gravid, with a belly distended by the late stages of the pregnancy. She had already been pregnant for a year, which just felt unfair to Leo. Apparently, elves had a gestation period longer than humans.
Andul stood next to Lily. He was Leo’s sworn bodyguard, but these days, he spent most of his time protecting Lily at Leo’s request. Although in truth, the two did far more crafting than anything that needed protection, and the dwarf was a brilliant maker of magical items—called an imbuer on this world of Toth that Leo had been summoned to.
The dwarf was dressed in his brass-colored golem plate armor, helm included, so Leo couldn’t see his red beard or brown eyes, but he knew the dwarf’s visage well, and could imagine it easily.
Lily reached down and straightened Leo’s tunic, then adjusted the new circlet of white gold and emeralds on his head, pulling a few strands of Leo’s own metallic gold hair straight as well. “You’re late.”
Leo poked the circlet again, cringing as he thought about it. All of his ministers had expressed to him that he needed it for formal affairs, at least, but it just felt deeply offensive to his American soul—ostentatious and prideful to the point of hubris in his mind.
But his people expected it, apparently.
“I’m not late,” Leo said, glancing at the sky. “I think it’s a good ten or twenty minutes till they start.”
Lily rolled her eyes but gave him another smile. “To the start, yes. But the king should be in his seat, regal, and waiting, not rushing in at the last moment.”
She glanced at his fingers and rolled her eyes slightly while giving him a loving smile. “Nor should they have honey fingers. But I suppose most won’t care.”
“I’m already wishing that I’d brought my copy of Soul Imbuing: A Guide to Happiness,” Leo said with a laugh, although in truth he was very curious how today would go.
“Well, hurry up,” Lily said, motioning him down the courthouse hall. It was packed with a couple hundred of his citizens, who all made way for their king, smiling at him and bowing, hands over heart, with murmurs of ‘Good morn, King Leo,” and the equivalent. Or, for the cheeky ones, giving him the three finger sign for ‘okay’ or ‘good luck’ that the elves of Averia used.
Apparently, there was no concept of common law on Toth, or at least in the thirteen continents that all had at least some contact with one another. Certainly not on Beldin, the continent Leo’s realm, the Kingdom of Averia, was on. The idea that where the law was silent, the courts would craft a rule as close to the law as possible and use it going forward was foreign. It had blown Lily’s mind when he had talked about it, but Leo knew from his various history and civics courses—as well as independent reading—that it had been very important in many aspects of English and American history that he considered positive.
But to the people of his adopted home, voluntarily giving up power from a king to a court was foreign and a bit suspect.
But Leo had insisted. His ministers and people had enough respect for him, and faith in him, that they went along. Leo had bought most of his people from slavery and given them farms and businesses, defended them in a war, and was rebuilding their empire. So, for those that cared enough to follow such things, overwhelming curiosity seemed to be the biggest emotion rather than rejection out of hand.
Now, citizenry from all over were coming to the first case to test it. Leo would bet gold to copper that the courtroom itself would be packed.
Leo smiled to himself as he thought about everything. It should go well, after all… should. He couldn’t have asked for a better test case. The two claimants were Vyrneal Ironbranch and his friend Wylwynd Bluecloud. The two were veterans from the brief Founding War, and served on the militia together as part time volunteers. Vyrneal was now married to Wylwynd’s little sister, and they were family. The damages in the case were minor. The two elves had been prepared to resolve the matter over a drunken game of cards when someone else—also drunk—had suggested they try the new court instead just for the giggles. They had all decided to do so.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
So they had gone and drunkenly requested a hearing date. Leo had thanked all the crazy gods of this world that he had gotten a case like this. He was pretty sure that no one would be angry. No one had such vested interests that losing the case would cause them to hate the system. He hoped it would work and establish the precedent of being a good idea before anyone could form a strong negative opinion.
For Leo, the real question was ‘would his first judge perform as expected?’ He had appointed, with great reluctance and on advice of his council, active followers of Kellen and Turin Corvuri to be the judges of the court—most of them from Steelport, a merchant house oligarchy with few similarities to his own system. No one else had practical experience with law, apparently.
On earth, there were sort of two categories in religious people—those that followed, and those that served the church directly. Here, there were three categories. Followers was one, but those that served directly had two important sub-categories. Lay servants, with no direct ties to the god, and priests, which received magic and powers from the god—and had to follow the gods’ orders first, usually.
Leo believed deeply in separation of church and state, even more so here where gods were beings that communicated directly with their servants and had direct interests in practical outcomes of cases. No one here felt the same, however. Leo had compromised by appointing lay servants from the churches without the direct magical links.
Everyone agreed that the man hearing this case, Vincent Petrelli, was a brilliant legal mind. He was also young, and Leo hoped he would really understand the concept behind common law and be able to work with it.
Leo slipped into the courtroom itself, which bore a decent similarity to the ones on earth. It had one table for each of the two parties, a ton of benches for others watching, and a raised dais where a judge sat, watching.
Leo slipped past the crowds in the room to a reserved seat in the front row. He had intentionally not allowed a seat inside the judging area for the king, but had been talked into a small space on one front bench that could be used if he was there, and opened to the public if he wasn’t.
He waited until the judge took his seat. An elf guard did the “all rise” and “be seated” thing, conveying respect to the judge at Leo’s suggestion. The judge in question was in his thirties, with close-cut black hair and olive skin, and very impressive eyebrows for a thirty-something. Leo had spent a lot of time with Vincent, and found the man to be quite intelligent and funny. Although he assumed a very dignified, even stiff, demeanor in public appearances.
“Freeman Bluecloud, please tell me what happened,” the judge began.
Leo already knew the case and barely paid attention to the details. The long and the short of it was that each man had taken baby cows—newly acquired from across the Split Sea, south of the Inner Sea that Leo’s capital, Star Port, was located on. But Vyrneal had also acquired a baby wolf—not a magical ghost wolf, a normal wolf—from inside the Forest of Averia.
When the two had taken their cows to feed on the grass around the Ashti Sun Node near Wheat Town, on the west side of the Blue River, and taken the pup along. While both men played with the wolf pup, it had accidentally spooked the calves. They had run off, and one calf that belonged to Bluecloud had somehow ended up in the Blue River, and drowned.
Frankly, it sounded like the kind of unfortunate thing mildly drunk males got into back in the farmlands of central California all the time.
After ten minutes, in which both sides explained what happened, and the judge had asked questions, he pronounced himself ready to rule on the matter.
Judge Petrelli picked up a huge book of laws that Leo and his ministers had worked long and hard to create, holding it out slightly before speaking. “I have been appointed by King Leonard Emmanual ap Evans il Stardew, first of his name, more commonly known as King Leo after the manner of the elves of Averia, to handle matters of this court. In this matter and others before me, I speak with his name. Do all accept this?”
A mutter of “yeses” from the two.
The judge continued. “I have also been given the unusual duty that when there is no law from my sovereign that is on point, I am to craft the solution that best fits the case from the existing laws, and that this shall thereafter be the law till it is overridden by King Leo. Do all accept my authority in this matter?”
Both men voiced their agreement.
The judge set the book down and opened it. “Very well. I will rule as follows. Freeman Ironbranch shall give to Freeman Bluecloud half the price of the drowned calf.”
Leo leaned a bit closer to the judge, and cocked his ear to listen better. He had thought that it would be all or nothing.
Judge Petrelli flipped a few pages. “In the section on land use and agriculture, the King decreed, in section thirteen, subsection nine, that any animal that escapes its owner’s control, onto another’s land, is liable for damages to that land and its property and occupants. Freeman Ironbranch argues that they were on public land, so this rule should not apply.”
Vyrneal nodded.
The judge continued. “However, the land of a man is defined as land from which he may exclude people. And in section thirteen, paragraph five, the law specifically notes that an animal causing damages to someone that has entered the land owned by a man does not give rise to the same penalties unless they were invited to the land.”
The judge closed the book with a snap. “This means that the defining factor of when the penalty is to apply was clearly intended by the king to be when animals cause harm where the owner of the offending animal does not have exclusive, current right to possession. Not necessarily a place where others have exclusive control. This, again, rises from the fact harm to a man invited to someone elses land shall still be compensated—this is land where the harmed party had no control at all.”
Judge Petrelli paused, sweeping his glance across the crowd. “As such, animals that cause harm on public land are, until such time as the King sees fit to decide differently, subject to the same rules as animals that cause harm on another’s personal land, or harm to other’s invited to the land where the harm occurs.”
Judge Petrelli pointed the book at Bluecloud. “However, the king also created the law about assumed risk, wherein something otherwise a crime or bearing a penalty—like an owned animal attacking a man—is not a crime when the man chose to assume the risk—like by going into Dungeon Lord Belmoria’s dungeon and fighting for experience. In his wisdom, King Leo also decreed that individual facts are important, and not just his laws. He gave to each judge the authority to mitigate a penalty or award based on those facts. I decree that by knowingly fraternizing for most of the day with your brother-in-law’s immature and untrained wild animal—like schoolyard children I might add—you knowingly placed yourself in a situation where this was likely to occur.”
The judge gave a slight smile to the two petitioners, seeming a bit more humanized as he continued. “I have myself gone out drinking with my fellows on many an afternoon. I in no way hold this to be a bad thing. But by doing so openly with an immature wild animal, you did assume at least some risk, and I believe it to be half the risk. As such, you shall only recover half the price of the calf.”
Vyrneal smiled sheepishly, and Bluecloud let out a slight nervous giggle. But the crowd clapped, and neither man seemed overly upset. A calf was no small thing to these people, but the two men were higher level—Level Four each—and were brother’s-in-law and fellow veterans to boot. It was easier for them to handle, both financially and because they were fast friends.
Leo smiled as well. He wasn’t a lawyer by any stretch, and trying to bring his memory of laws and such to the front had been hard. He had mostly had laws read to him and then tried to remember how his own people had handled it. But overall, he thought he had done a decent job.
And Judge Petrelli appeared to understand what Leo wanted, and to be doing his job well. Leo slipped his hand into Lily’s and rose, holding three fingers up where only the judge and his guard could see it, and then left the courtroom.
I finally feel like I have a good set of laws, and a good man to lead this part of my burgeoning elf empire. This is a huge and important step, and I’m glad to get another thing off my plate and into more capable hands.
Leo smiled. It had been a year since they had last had a serious problem, and Leo hadn’t been idle. He had been taking care of a lot that had been lacking in his kingdom, shoring it up in many different ways for the day the next shoe dropped.
Which might be very soon. As he exited the courthouse, just as when he had entered, Leo cast his gaze to Yggdrasil, the tree between worlds. It had started to develop three smaller trees sprouting from one of its huge branches. The dimensional gate to Ice Pines had been formed by three trees growing from Yggdrasil together—three Pine trees. Everyone was pretty sure that the next dimension would open up soon.
Then Leo would almost certainly be tested again, and he wanted as little on his plate when that happened as possible.