Raymun first met Edwyn Cale in Duskendale.
Mara had taken him and Ellyn along on a supply trip.
While Mara negotiated for salt and lamp oil, Raymun spotted a narrow office near the market where a middle-aged man sat behind a desk covered in parchment.
Ink stained his fingers.
Perfect.
Raymun slipped inside.
The clerk looked up.
“Yes?”
“I have a question.”
Edwyn waited.
“If my father owns five acres beside his inn, who decides where his land ends?”
The clerk blinked.
“Your father.”
“What if his neighbor disagrees?”
“Witnesses.
Old markers.
Agreements.”
“What if the markers moved?”
Edwyn slowly lowered his quill.
“How old are you?”
“Six.”
“Go away.”
Raymun returned ten minutes later.
“What happens if someone owes money and dies?”
Edwyn stared at him.
“Where is your mother?”
“Shopping.”
“Find her.”
“Does the debt disappear?”
“No.”
“So the family inherits it?”
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
Edwyn pointed toward the door.
“Out.”
Raymun left.
He returned the next month.
Edwyn saw him enter.
“No.”
“Good morning.”
“No.”
“I haven’t asked anything yet.”
Raymun smiled.
“That saves time.”
Edwyn closed his eyes.
Slowly, painfully, Raymun learned.
Not because Edwyn suddenly became his teacher.
Mostly because Raymun became too persistent to remove permanently.
Property law wasn’t one clean set of rules.
There were local customs.
Written agreements.
Witnessed agreements.
Rights attached to land.
Obligations attached to those rights.
Taxes.
Rents.
Fees.
Authority belonging to lords.
Authority exercised by stewards.
Rules merchants followed because everyone expected them to, even when those rules weren’t formally written anywhere.
Raymun quickly realized something important.
Knowing a rule did not mean the powerful would obey it.
And possessing a right did not guarantee anyone would enforce it.
That lesson felt particularly Westerosi.
The System helped him organize everything.
A new section gradually formed in his Journal.
LAWBOOK
Property & Tenure
Debt & Credit
Contracts
Taxes & Fees
Market Customs
Inheritance
Civic Authority
Most entries carried warnings.
Confidence: Moderate
Or:
Local practice only.
Sometimes:
Conflicting information.
Raymun loved it.
Months later, Garran discovered what his son had been doing.
“You’ve been bothering a clerk?”
“Learning.”
“Bothering.”
“Both.”
“Why?”
Raymun looked across the Briar Hearth’s yard.
Beyond the stable stood their small fields.
Beyond those fields lay another narrow parcel belonging to an aging farmer.
Raymun had been watching it for months.
“We’ll need more land someday.”
Garran followed his gaze.
“For what?”
“A larger stable.
Storage.
Maybe another building.”
“We can’t afford that.”
“Not now.”
Garran looked down at him.
Raymun continued.
“But if we ever can, I want to know exactly what we’re buying.”
For once, Garran didn’t laugh.
Instead, he crouched.
“Listen carefully.
Wanting more isn’t bad.”
Raymun nodded.
“But don’t spend your whole life staring at the next field and forget the one you’re standing on.”
Raymun looked back toward the inn.
Mara was carrying a pot toward the kitchen.
Ellyn chased a chicken across the yard.
The old hearth smoked gently through the chimney.
Home.
“I won’t.”
Garran squeezed his shoulder.
“Good.”
Then Ellyn screamed.
“RAY!”
Raymun turned.
She had somehow gotten her head stuck between two pieces of the yard fence.
Garran stared.
Raymun stared.
Ellyn kicked furiously.
“HELP!”
Garran sighed.
“Your great commercial empire awaits.”
Raymun ran toward his sister.
There would be time for land.
There would be time for business.
Today, apparently, there was a fence.