While Borin negotiated with the desert nomads, I was embroiled in a different kind of tribal warfare, one fought not with spears, but with whispers, accusations, and the fragile, new authority of our law tablets. The peace of Oakhaven was shattered by its first major internal crisis.
It began with a woman's scream. A family, returning from their labor on the new city wall, found their home ransacked. Not just the main room, but the small, private sleeping quarters. A pouch of dried herbs, a small hand-carved toy, and, most devastatingly, a clay jug containing their family's ration of beer for the week, were missing. It was a petty theft, but it was a profound violation. The sanctity of the home, a concept we were only just beginning to truly establish with our new houses, had been breached.
Suspicion fell immediately and venomously upon the prisoners. Despite their model behavior and Ren's heroic example, the deep-seated mistrust remained. A small mob, led by the victim's angry husband, gathered outside the prisoners' barracks, their faces contorted with rage.
"It was one of them!" the man yelled, brandishing a shovel. "They are thieves and killers! We should have slit their throats when we had the chance!"
This was a direct challenge to my law, to the 'Lord's Mercy'. If I allowed mob justice to prevail, our entire legal framework would collapse. I arrived with Kael and two of my militia guards, planting myself between the mob and the barracks.
"There will be no mob justice in Oakhaven," I declared, my voice cold and hard. "We have laws. An accusation has been made. I will investigate it. A trial will be held. Guilt must be proven, not assumed."
My authority was enough to disperse the mob, but the anger simmered. This test had to be handled perfectly. A wrongful conviction would destroy the prisoners' fragile hope of integration. A failure to find the culprit would destroy the citizens' faith in my justice.
I began the investigation myself. The system offered no 'Criminology' packet. I had to rely on simple logic and observation. I interviewed the family, the neighbors. I examined the ransacked home, my eyes scanning for any clue, any detail out of place. The thief had been clumsy, leaving scuff marks on the floor and a deep gouge in the wooden doorframe.
My primary suspects were, of course, the eleven remaining prisoners. But a thorough search of their barracks and their persons revealed nothing. They professed their innocence, their faces masks of genuine fear. They knew their lives hung in the balance.
The citizens grew restless. They saw my failure to find an immediate culprit as weakness. "Your mercy has made us vulnerable," one man spat at me in the street.
I spent a day in quiet contemplation, replaying every detail in my mind. The stolen items were odd. Beer, yes, a valuable commodity. But dried herbs? A child's toy? It didn't feel like the work of a desperate man, but of something more personal, more spiteful. And then there was the gouge on the door. It was low to the ground, and angled strangely.
My engineering knowledge, my understanding of leverage and force, provided the spark. The mark wasn't made by a man prying open a door. It was smaller, more precise.
On the third day, I convened the entire city in the square. This would be Oakhaven's first public trial. I, as Lord and Chief Justice, presided from the steps of the manor. The council of elders sat beside me.
"An accusation of theft has been laid," I began. "But no evidence has been found to implicate the prisoners." A murmur of outrage went through the crowd. "Because the thief was not among them."
I called forth the man whose home had been robbed, a man named Joric. He was a large, blustering man who had been the loudest voice calling for the prisoners' execution.
"Joric," I said calmly. "Show me the toy that was stolen from your son."
"It is gone, my Lord!" he said, exasperated. "That is the point!"
"Describe it to me," I insisted.
He did so, a simple wooden carving of a desert lizard.
"Like this one?" I asked, and produced the toy from a pouch at my belt.
A collective gasp went through the crowd. Joric's face went white.
"The day of the robbery," I explained, my voice carrying across the silent square, "I spoke to the children. I asked them about their toys. And Joric's son told me his father had taken his lizard carving away from him that morning, as a punishment for misbehaving. He also told me his father had been angry with their neighbor, the man whose family won the housing lottery last week, claiming he had cheated."
I held up the pouch of herbs. "These herbs were not stolen from Joric's house. They belong to his neighbor, taken from the small garden we encourage people to grow. Joric planted them in his own home to make the theft seem more significant."
Finally, I pointed to Joric's own door. "And the beer? It was not stolen. Joric drank it himself, then staged the robbery to cast suspicion on the prisoners and to sow discord, hoping to undermine the authority of the council and the fairness of the lottery." The gouge on his door, I realized, was from him trying to make it look forced, but his unfamiliarity with breaking and entering made him clumsy.
The chain of logic was undeniable. Joric, confronted with the evidence and the testimony of his own child, collapsed, confessing his crime through choked sobs. He had been consumed by jealousy and had sought to poison the city against my laws.
The trial was over. Now came the sentencing. All eyes were on me.
"Joric," I said, my voice resonating with the weight of our new laws. "You have been found guilty of theft by deception, and of bearing false witness with the intent to incite violence. According to the Law of Property, you must repay your neighbor threefold for the herbs you stole. According to the Law of Labor, for attempting to undermine the city's peace, you will be assigned to the prisoner work crew for one full month. You will repair the walls alongside the men you sought to have killed. Your case will be the first entry inscribed on our tablets of judgment."
The sentence was severe but just. It was not based on bloodlust, but on restorative, logical punishment. The citizens, who had been ready to form a lynch mob, were silent, humbled by the process. They had witnessed not a show of force, but the careful, inexorable working of a system of justice. They had seen that the law applied to everyone, citizen and prisoner alike.
As Joric was led away by the guards, a new sense of order settled over Oakhaven. It was the quiet assurance that comes from knowing that truth matters, that evidence is weighed, and that justice, not vengeance, is the ultimate law of the land. Our city had survived its first great internal test. It was growing up.