The words hung over the hall, dry as lime powder. Zorina, puddle collecting around her split boots, glared. Oversee? She had braced for a trumpet blast from the sky, or an archangel with a sword of salt. Not a clerk who looked as though he pressed his collar between millstones. “Oversee?” Zorina barked, locking her knees before her shins could tremble. On her shoulder, Burak let loose a dry, rasping hiss, black snout pointed directly at the man’s polished leather buckles. Lady Bogdana swept forward, her stiff brocade rustling like dead reeds. “Chamberlain Zahorski! What an unexpected honour. A minor family squabble, nothing more. My niece has always had a peasant’s thirst for theatrics. Shovels manure, you understand.” Her fingers fluttered toward Zorina’s soaked skirts. Teodor dipped his chin by half an inch. “Lady Volenska. Your lineage is well documented. However, an invocation of the Tithe-Right of the Dispossessed mandates an immediate Crown hearing. The law does not recognize family squabbles.” His eyes skimmed the frozen guests before dropping to the wet brass token in Zorina’s grip. “Walk with me to the manor library, Miss Volenska. Bring your... beast.” Burak curled his upper lip, showing a yellow molar. The library smelled of beeswax and decaying calfskin. High casements threw pale squares across a walnut desk gouged with ancient inkpots. Teodor sat, drawing a thick calf-bound register and a knife-trimmed crow quill from his satchel. Zorina planted herself on the threadbare rug opposite, water dripping steadily from her hem. “Your full name and the legal basis of your claim, Miss Volenska,” Teodor said, arranging a brass ruler beside his inkwell. “Concise, if you please.” Zorina took a deep breath. “Zorina Volenska. Sole heir to the late Count Casimir.” She slammed the brass token onto the desk, splattering water across the ruler. “Bogdana falsified my father’s testament. The seraphim have ordered me to take every groschen back, plus interest for seven years of turnip soup.” Teodor lifted the brass piece by its tarnished rim. “The Tithe-Right of the Dispossessed, Codex Radomysl, Section Nine. A claimant offers the ceremonial Harvest Heart to demand redress before witnesses during a public tithe.” He set it down, nudging it until it squared evenly with the desk blotter. Zorina bared her teeth in a grin. “Sanctified proof! Heaven’s own decree!” “It is an exceedingly troublesome piece of tax law,” Teodor countered, not looking up as he inked his nib. “Its trigger brings a Crown auditor within the hour. Hence my presence. Your initial submission cites ‘Deprivation of Property.’ Itemize.” “The manor, three mills, the rents from seven hamlets, and eighty silver guilders from my mother’s dowry chest,” she snapped, ticking fingers off in his face. “They threw me into the straw to mend harnesses.” Teodor didn't flinch. “Harness maintenance. Noted.” The crow feather scratched against parchment. “And the heavenly instructions you referenced in the hall?” Zorina described the flaming letters swimming in the trough, the sacred call to File Grievance 4B. Teodor tracked her words with small, rhythmic dips of his pen, neither rolling his eyes nor reaching for a physician. The sheer silence of him made the hair on her arms prickle. “Understood,” Teodor said, blotting a line of script. “Procedurally, the token holds. You possess provisional standing to challenge Lady Bogdana’s tenure over the Volenska holdings until the midsummer audit. However, the burden of evidentiary submission rests on you.” “A legal breach!” Zorina struck the oak desk with her fist. Burak dug his claws into her wool bodice to keep from tumbling. “The breach is an open inquiry, nothing more,” Teodor corrected flatly. “You may go. I must compare parish registers against the district land rolls.” Zorina spun on her heel and strode out, Burak clicking his teeth in triumph. Teodor watched the heavy door click shut. He laid the register aside, slid open a cedar recess below the desktop, and lifted out a grease-stained folder tied with frayed hemp. On the cover, in his own student hand, ran the notation: *Orphan Stipend Recipient: ZV-1138* Inside rested an ink sketch of a scowling seven-year-old gripping an iron spade, dated ten winters back. He pressed a thumb against the creased corner, his shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch. After three quiet breaths, he slipped the file back into the dark of the wood and took up his blotter. Down in the tack room, Zorina kicked the door shut. “Burak! The next revelation!” She dragged a bucket of well water to the bench and peered into the murky dark. Nothing. She angled a pewter buckle toward the tallow candle, then the convex curve of a currycomb, then a greasy windowpane. Still dead metal and cold glass. Her throat tightened with fury. “Are the thrones ignoring us? Did I mispronounce the claim?” She kicked a split harness into the corner. Burak chuffed, rolled onto his haunches, and shoved a discarded shaving glass across the straw with his snout. Zorina grabbed the cracked glass, wiping stable grime off the center with her cuff. Through the gray scuffs, phosphorus-yellow letters burned into the pane: [Cite Precedent 113: The Goose-Herd's Gambit] Zorina squinted. “The Goose-Herd’s Gambit? What in Saint Vlasta’s crypt does a herd of geese have to do with three stolen manors?” She muttered it under her breath, turning the phrase like an iron cog. “Geese. Fowl. Property disputes...” She jerked toward the iron grate facing the south terrace. Strolling past the clipped boxwoods were Krystof and Irena’s white peacocks—six screeching, vanity-fattened monstrosities with crested crowns. Lady Bogdana had filed papers under the Avian Purity Statutes to prove their blue-blooded breeding to the Radomysl court. And under Chapter Four of the rural tax tables, exotic ornamental birds were classified strictly as working beasts of husbandry. The corners of Zorina’s mouth tugged upward into a sharp smirk. Farm stock. A direct challenge to the master’s competence in managing rural beasts. Krystof and Irena would weep salt into their soup if so much as a feather went missing. The maneuver was clear. Holy, lawful ruin.

The Badger and the Bylaw