The sun stood at its afternoon zenith when Lord Justice Kenneth unrolled the great parchment scroll of the Royal Restitution Decree across the court bench.
He dipped his heavy quill into black soot ink and affixed the Great Seal of the King’s Bench in shining scarlet wax. He then called Tomas Reed and Old Kaelen Brant to the center of the dais.
“Master Assessor Reed, Teamster Brant,” Lord Justice Kenneth announced. He projected his voice across the silent, breathless crowd. “Hear the decree of the Sovereign Bench:”
“Under the power of Crown Charter 404, the entire forty-eight thousand acres of Grade-One river-bed river basin extending east from the Green River bluff to the western gravel terrace is restored in unending freehold to the twelve hundred claimant families of the Southern March and their lawful heirs forever. No lord, no trade ring. No country governor shall ever demand tax, quit-rent, or toll upon these lands.”
“Further: all improvements made upon the land—including fifty miles of drainage dikes, sixty timber barns, and three water-powered gristmills built by the dissolved trade ring—are forfeited and passed without cost to the refugee collective as partial payback for forty years of wrongful exile.”
“Further: the four thousand five hundred bushels of grain seized at the Dry-Wells depot are awarded in full to the community as resettlement seed and bread, and fifty-two seized cavalry horses are assigned permanently to their draft pool.”
