The argument began over a stone.
Not a valuable stone.
Not a pretty stone.
Just a knee-high lump of weathered gray rock sitting between two fields.
Garran stopped beside it.
“That wasn’t there.”
Raymun looked at the stone.
Then at his father.
“How can you tell?”
“Because yesterday it was over there.”
Garran pointed.
About six feet away was a shallow depression in the earth.
Raymun looked back at the stone.
“Oh.”
The neighboring field belonged to Willem Pike.
Not the Ironborn Pykes.
Raymun had learned very quickly that similar names in Westeros did not necessarily imply dramatic connections.
Willem was a farmer in his fifties who owned several acres adjoining part of the Briar Hearth’s land.
Raymun knew him.
Not well.
He occasionally drank at the inn.
His eldest son had helped Garran repair fencing once.
There had never been trouble between them.
Until apparently someone moved a rock.
Garran crossed the field.
Raymun followed.
“Are you going to confront him?”
“I’m going to ask him.”
“What if he denies it?”
“Then he denies it.”
“What if—”
“Raymun.”
He stopped.
Garran glanced down.
“Ask first.
Prepare for trouble second.”
Raymun considered that.
Reasonable.
Annoyingly reasonable.
They found Willem repairing a plow.
He looked up.
“Garran.”
“Willem.”
Raymun waited.
Garran pointed toward the boundary.
“Stone moved.”
Willem wiped his hands.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, it didn’t.”
Garran’s expression changed slightly.
Raymun recognized that look.
His father was still calm.
But only technically.
“It was six feet east yesterday.”
“Been there since spring.”
“No.”
Willem stood.
“You calling me a liar?”
Raymun quietly stepped backward.
So much for asking first.
Garran folded his arms.
“I’m saying the stone moved.”
“And I’m saying it didn’t.”
“Stones don’t walk.”
Willem looked toward Raymun.
“Your boy move it?”
Raymun blinked.
“Why would I move a boundary stone?”
“You do strange things.”
That was unfair.
Accurate.
But unfair.
The argument lasted ten minutes.
Nobody shouted.
That somehow made it worse.
Willem insisted the stone had been there for months.
Garran insisted it hadn’t.
Neither had proof.
Eventually they separated with nothing resolved.
On the walk home, Raymun was already thinking.
“Witnesses.”
Garran grunted.
“Maybe.”
“Old measurements?”
“Maybe.”
“Previous agreements?”
“Maybe.”
“Edwyn might know where—”
Garran stopped.
“No.”
Raymun stared.
“No?”
“You’re not riding to Duskendale over six feet of dirt.”
“But this is exactly why boundaries matter.”
“I know.”
“If we ignore it, moving six feet becomes normal.”
“I know.”
“And if—”
“I said I know.”
Raymun stopped.
Garran sighed.
“I’m not ignoring it.”
“Then what are we doing?”
“Thinking.”
Raymun almost smiled.
“That sounds suspiciously like my job.”
Garran cuffed the back of his head lightly.
At supper, Mara listened to the story.
“Did Willem move it?”
“Yes,” Garran said.
“You don’t know that.”
“Did you see him move it?”
“No.”
“Did Raymun?”
“No.”
Mara looked at Raymun.
He shook his head.
“Then we know the stone moved.”
Garran frowned.
Mara continued eating.
“That’s all.”
Raymun felt an uncomfortable flicker of recognition.
Source.
Evidence.
Confidence.
His own rules.
He opened the Journal.
Known: Boundary stone is currently approximately six feet west of location Garran remembers.
He paused.
Then corrected it.
Known: Garran states boundary stone previously stood approximately six feet east.
That was more accurate.
Raymun himself hadn’t paid attention to the stone before today.
He had no independent memory of its position.
Unknown: Who moved it.
Unknown: When.
Unknown: Whether current or previous position represents legally recognized boundary.
Raymun stared.
Much less satisfying.
Much more honest.
The next morning, they searched.
Not dramatically.
They simply asked people.
Thom Berrick remembered the stone but couldn’t recall its exact location.
A shepherd thought it had been closer to the ditch.
Another neighbor insisted there used to be two stones.
That created an entirely new problem.
“Two?” Raymun asked.
“Think so.”
“You think?”
“Been years.”
“Where was the second?”
The man waved vaguely.
“Over there.”
Raymun looked across several hundred feet of field.
“Excellent.”
Then Mara remembered something.
“Harren’s chest.”
Garran looked up.
“What?”
“Your uncle’s old papers.”
“He barely kept papers.”
“He kept some.”
They searched the storage room.
Raymun loved the idea immediately.
Old records.
Property documents.
Historical evidence.
Perhaps a forgotten survey.
A deed.
A map.
Instead they found receipts for ale, several unpaid accounts from men probably long dead, a badly written letter concerning a pig, and a document half-eaten by mice.
Raymun held up the damaged parchment.
“This is tragic.”
Garran sneezed.
“This is dust.”
Then Raymun found a folded sheet beneath the chest’s false bottom.
His heart jumped.
He opened it carefully.
A property agreement.
Old.
Faded.
But readable.
Mostly.
It described part of the land around the old Bent Cup.
Raymun read slowly.
Garran leaned over him.
“Anything?”
“Maybe.”
There were references to boundaries.
A ditch.
An old ash tree.
A stone marker.
Raymun’s excitement grew.
Then died.
“What?”
“The ash tree.”
“What about it?”
“Where is it?”
Garran looked outside.
Silence.
“It died.”
“When?”
“Before you were born.”
Raymun closed his eyes.
Of course.
But the document gave them something.
Not an exact modern survey.
Not proof of where every foot belonged.
But evidence.
Raymun copied it carefully before they took it anywhere.
Then Garran did something Raymun hadn’t expected.
He went back to Willem.
With the document.
And ale.
“Why ale?” Raymun asked.
“Because I want my land, not an enemy.”
That shut Raymun up.
Willem read poorly.
His eldest son read better.
They studied the document together.
Then walked the field.
The ash tree was gone, but Garran remembered its stump.
Willem remembered it too.
They found the remains beneath years of weeds and soil.
Measurements were rough.
Very rough.
But the evidence suggested something neither man liked.
The old boundary probably wasn’t where the stone stood now.
It also probably wasn’t exactly where Garran remembered it.
Raymun watched the two men.
Garran scratched his beard.
Willem kicked dirt.
“So.”
“So,” Garran replied.
Neither apologized.
Raymun suspected this was how many adult male friendships survived.
Eventually they agreed on a line between the surviving landmarks.
The stone was moved.
Again.
This time both households watched.
Raymun recorded the location as carefully as he could.
So did Willem’s son.
Two copies.
Witnesses.
No mystery.
No triumph.
Six feet of disputed dirt became roughly three.
Nobody won everything.
Nobody lost face entirely.
And nobody stabbed anyone.
By Westerosi standards, Raymun considered that an excellent legal outcome.
On the walk home, Garran carried the empty ale jug.
Raymun walked beside him.
“You were wrong.”
Garran looked down.
“Careful.”
“You said the old location was definitely correct.”
“I remembered it there.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“Apparently.”
Raymun smiled.
Garran sighed.
“Enjoying this?”
“A little.”
“Remember this feeling when you’re wrong.”
Raymun’s smile disappeared.
That was less fun.
That evening, Raymun updated the Lawbook.
PROPERTY — BOUNDARY DISPUTES
He recorded the agreement.
The old document.
Witnesses.
Landmarks.
Uncertainty.
He added a practical note:
Physical markers can move.
Natural landmarks can disappear.
Memory is evidence, not certainty.
Then another:
Duplicate records reduce future disputes.
He considered stopping.
Instead he added:
A correct solution that creates a permanent enemy may still be expensive.
That one belonged to Garran.
Raymun saved it.
Several days later, Willem came to the Briar Hearth.
Raymun watched carefully.
The farmer sat at the counter.
Garran approached.
For a moment neither spoke.
Then Willem placed two pennies down.
“Ale.”
Garran poured it.
Willem drank.
“Still watered.”
“Go somewhere else.”
“No.”
That was it.
Dispute finished.
Raymun smiled.
Mara noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He looked toward the two men.
A boundary had been argued over.
Evidence had been found.
A compromise had been reached.
Records now existed.
And the neighbor still drank at their inn.
For Raymun, who had once imagined law as rules written neatly somewhere waiting to be discovered, the lesson was becoming clearer.
Law wasn’t only parchment.
It was memory.
Custom.
Evidence.
Authority.
Negotiation.
Reputation.
And sometimes two stubborn men deciding that three feet of dirt wasn’t worth hating each other for.
Raymun opened the Journal one final time.
LAWBOOK PRINCIPLE:
Knowing your rights matters.
He added:
Knowing which fights are worth having matters too.
Then he closed it.
Ellyn immediately ran through the common room carrying Ronan’s blanket.
Ronan crawled after her furiously.
“Ellyn!”
“He wants it!”
“He clearly doesn’t want you to have it!”
“He’s chasing me!”
“Because you stole it!”
Raymun sighed and stood.
Property disputes, apparently, began young.