Edwyn kept his hood up, as he sat in a corner of the Red Door Inn, but like so many other things, it was a poor veil for the truth of him: when he ordered a glass of ale, or a bite of bread and butter (and was pleasantly surprised to find it of sufficient quality), it was his diction first that gave him away: a man may wear many disguises, but his birth will out, one way or another. He gave the girl another copper to quit calling him m'lord, and then he sat back to watch. By day, the place filled with shopkeeps taking a bite for as long as they dared to keep their doors shut in a packed and booming post-war city, with travelling merchants sharing sustenance before or after a voyage. A mostly male crowd, dressed not in silks and velvet but in precise, neat woolen clothing, copper and bronze at the belt buckle, perhaps a simple ring or chain for adornment. Simple, but fastidious on the whole. It was not until nightfall, when, once done with whatever they were about up in the Tower on the First Level, the solicitors came down, folios molded to hand as Edwyn's sword was an appendages of his very self.
From the shadows, Edwyn costed out each man's clothing, measured his days upon the earth, noted the spark or coolness in each solicitor's firelit eyes as he spoke. They did not stop working, they did not know rest. These were coming Men, Edwyn thought. They would only grow in number, and in power.
Their talk bored him: arcane bits of ancient statutory from the Shire, a case from the Second Age, an edict issued by some long dead king of Rohan, all of it dissected and analyzed and compared. As their talk blurred, his mind slipped away from the Inn, and to the High Hall of Eaglecrest Mountain, where a boy confounded and escaped his tutors, and his dear sweet mother was in fear for his future, that he should be ill-prepared to give justice as liege lord to so many separate fiefdoms under the wide roof of Eaglecrest.
"Ah, but my lady, justice is in the heart," his father would say, catching Edwyn up and popping him into his father's saddle, bracing him against a strong back. "Besides, my little lad is more clever than his tutors: when he has need of the book he'll open it, and conjure more from it than they ever might."
He took his main education from his father: he'd kept his father's secrets too. His father's women were around the realm, young and beautiful and endlessly merry, and they would spoil Edwyn such that he could never dislike him, not even later, when his mother's heart was broken to ruin. He'd loved them all, for their gorgeous warm joy, but it was another's different sort of beauty that had set his heart ablaze when he'd been twelve. And the lord had taken him aside again—riding side by side instead of two astride, now that Edwyn had his own fine horse—and taught him without ever speaking of the act itself that there were clothes one wore before the world, and clothes one might only wear before the mirror. This was simply the way the world was. When Edwyn was fifteen, some villagers had burned a man, and thus he'd learned the word buggery; he had learned, also, that there was nothing the Lord of Eaglecrest Mountain would do about it. Condemn the act. Condemn the unrepentant man. The clothes we wear before the world can be heavy, but we must wear them all the same. But if it is to be called a crime, who is harmed, my lord father? Surely harm must precede crime? You say justice is in the heart, must it remain there, then?
If you want to live, my son.
But war had come, and Edwyn had learned to scream wild joy at death's approach.
He shook his head free of memory, and trained his eye on a single man: neither the youngest nor the oldest. The shirt beneath the stiff black coat was good-quality linen, yet there was some fray about the cuff, a thing only seen when he twitched his hand to take another crumbling sheet of vellum from the pile. As the others left, this one remained, frowning over scratches inked onto paper, as if the words held secrets far beyond their outward form.
"May I join you, sir?"
The solicitor looked up: irritated, but perhaps more at the secrets of the page than the intrusion.
"Forgive me," Edwyn said, his voice pure deep honey. "I've a delicate problem, I could use the advice of a man such as yourself."
The man—overworked to be sure—narrowed eyes that Edwyn thought would surely break from use in years to come, and said simply, "Advice costs."
"All good things do, I am sure," Edwyn said, taking the unoffered seat. He held his fingers up to the maid: two more, two more on me. "A dear friend, one of my countrymen, did not return from a military mission, and now the mother seeks to dispossess the wife, to establish her own kin as heir. Is this lawful?"
"What is the relation?"
"Nephew to the mother."
"And your friend, no children?"
"None."
"Then, without seeing the contract, and that may make a difference… I would suggest that—generally, mind you—it may be permissible," the man said, shrugging, "Although the wife has usufruct, and may remain in the home until her life expires."
Edwyn frowned. "It is not enough, sir. Have you any better remedy in that folio of yours?"
The solicitor stared at him. Edwyn smiled, reached into a pouch at his waist. Placed one gold coin down upon the table. The solicitor's eyes widened. He arched a dark brow. Took the coin into his hand, bit it between his teeth and found it true.
"You say, my lord: missing."
"Presumed killed in action," Edwyn said, marveling that he didn't vomit as he produced the words. Clothes we wear in public.
"Ah!" the solicitor exclaimed, his squinted eyes brightening. "No body?"
"None, sir," Edwyn said.
"Well, then, your friend is not dead! Legally, I mean. There is death, and there is legal death, you see. And legal death requires a body, or, I believe in Rohan, a period of three years' absence where there be suspicion of death. The wife may appeal for an injunction blocking the nephew from taking possession of the property until legal death occurs. It is a simple petition, which in her case, in Rohan, will be brought to the lord of the land."
"I'm afraid the husband is the lord."
"I see," the solicitor said, frowning. "Then there is politics. Has he a liege lord?"
"A direct vassal of the king, sir. Though it is a small holding."
"She may approach your king, then, but be mindful that smaller holdings were created in a haphazard way, as a result of conflict, usually with Dunland, and there may indeed be a liege, even if the house is defunct, and the mother might argue improper jurisdiction. Of course, if there is precedent, where the estate has appealed in the past to the king, then her exception of improper venue could be refused."
Edwyn laughed softly. Run away, he thought, abandon the book for the saddle and sword. "That all may be a bit beyond the lady. Perhaps I could interest you in taking the case."
The solicitor made a little sound, which might have been a rough little growl if exhaustion didn't geld it into a sigh.
"I pay well. As you have witnessed."
"King Elessar pays better. I am tasked with bringing a unifying code to the laws of the entire realm, you see. Consider your own case: who is the liege lord, to whom does one appeal, in Gondor it is one way, in the Shire another, in Rohan a third, and all of it depending on time, and place, and who may be bribed and where bribes may be refused, and in one place the wife takes all, in another she has nothing but the privilege to die in the marital home. It is utterly brutal, that a woman may live in poverty under her in-laws in the home she built, if you want my opinion, which you've not paid for, but there it is all the same. Where the law does not protect all, it protects none, and the king means to see justice across the realm. That is the work I do now. I'll not sleep well until it's done, and many of your kind are not best pleased by it, but the king is the king, is he not?"
And there it was: where a spark of passion had lit the tired eyes when the solicitor had touched on a potential solution, now the eyes flamed, so much that the sun-deprived face became, so briefly, beautiful.
"This is personal for you," Edwyn realized. "This assignment."
The solicitor merely blinked. Edwyn had not paid for that information. Perhaps, even, there was no price that could be fixed. So: feint, chase the quarry another way.
"Well, I imagine it's all quite complicated," Edwyn said dismissively, leaning back a bit in his seat. He put a smile of noble condescension on his lips and murmured, "And perhaps… there is some scandal involved, and so it might be beyond your capabilities to untangle."
"I daresay not, my lord."
"Oh, well… Politics, as you say. The mother believes she can assault the wife's character, and so she will try to dispossess her that way, likely to succeed. I doubt you could do anything about that."
The solicitor's eyes narrowed. "You believe you are being cunning, my lord. Perhaps this is personal for you."
"Very much so. The lady is an innocent and the mother is reprehensible, but looks are everything, and the mother will paint a counter-portrait, and her connections are better than the lady's. The lady will be turned out, I assure you. The nephew sits in the hall as we sit here in our cups."
"That is unfair. This is precisely what's wrong with the present system. If the man is presumed dead but not yet dead, the nephew must not inherit. But slander and bribery go farther than truth, where the slandered party is weak and the speaker of slander is strong."
"It is the case," Edwyn said, frowning: his real face now, not the mask. He returned his gaze to the solicitor. "And the king cannot possibly pay you better. The king's treasury has been cracked by the late Denethor's mismanagement, whereas it was merely another item for my father and I between us to outfit a thousand knights and three times the foot. There is alum in our mountains, sir. But I don't suggest you abandon your work. It is a good and necessary work. I suggest you moonlight with me. Which is always worth a Man's while. And you'll help a lady that in no way can help herself."
"You support my work?" the solicitor asked, checked by amazement. "Even if it undercuts your own noble prerogatives?"
"We disagree that it would. I'm not yet inherited, but I don't prey on the weak. It is beneath me, as lord. I…" Edwyn frowned in his own amazement, seeing his own becoming unfold in the moment at hand, seeing a birth and a full life's growth until the end, all in a single breath of time. He realized, "I would be as a father to those in my care. I would my laws be just laws, protecting all who would live within them."
The solicitor searched Edwyn's face with penetrating eyes. "You would that the law apply to all Men and all Women in the same manner?"
For the first time in his life, Edwyn truly understood the thrill in words without metric verse: in their secret forms, their subtle power. The novel pleasure of it danced on his lips as he spoke, "I would the law apply to all Individuals, sir. What good if a… if a Dwarf is accused falsely, and finds your documents have been drawn around him, and not over him?"
"We shall list Dwarves."
"And Elves, sir?"
"And Elves," the solicitor said, with a 'what matter, this?' tone.
"And a Half-Dwarf? I hear such things exist, or may, and perhaps a Half-Dwarf, Half-Elf, and his great-grandfather might also be a Man, who can say? Is it not easier to use the general, 'Individual,' over a half a page of specificity, whereby you might neglect to mention some manner of existence you've not yet considered?"
"What are you about, my lord?" the solicitor asked, leaning back in his own seat, and crossing his arms over his chest.
"Justice?" Edwyn suggested.
"I think not. I think you err, and such error can open terrible possibilities."
Edwyn laughed harshly. "You are not about your stated business, then, are you?"
"I am not about business that would prevent a Man from defending himself from an Orc. You are no lawyer, perhaps you don't understand what you would do."
"Hmm," Edwyn said. "Or perhaps I'd not force one who would live within the law, without it. Whereas you breed outlawry through your exclusions. I see no frightening complexities issuing from this: obey the law, and it shall protect you. The murderer, the raper, shall hang, no matter what form the accident of birth renders the victim. It is quite simple."
The solicitor narrowed his eyes, considering it. "Accident of birth?"
"I know I made no requests before entering the womb, and emerging as I am. Did you?"
The solicitor's eyes narrowed further. His lips pinched together, as his essence inwardly debated the point. Finally, softly, "I did not."
Edwyn removed the pouch, heavy and clinking, from his waist. It was beyond a lifetime of income, in gold. More than any common man could ever expect to possess. He placed it on the table. "Do we understand each other, sir?"
The solicitor's eyes touched the pouch, the hand dared not.
"Individuals, will be the term. For brevity. Vellum is expensive. Ink is precious."
"And the King?"
"Is the finest Man alive. But perhaps not a solicitor, to disturb himself over the secrets of words."
The solicitor took a long drink of ale, and studied Edwyn. "Will you openly support the King's reforms, the uniformity of law, before your countrymen?"
"I can be a passionate advocate. And where required, a businessman of delicate sensibility. Alum is a necessary item. But I'm afraid it's rare, outside our lands."
The solicitor laughed. "You cannot help but be a nobleman. You cannot help but use wealth and power to bend others to your will."
"We all must use the weapons we have, good sir," Edwyn said, indicating the folio, the yellowing sheets, the mystery of words constructed carefully on a page. "It's not that we are armed, it's what we use our arms for, is it not? So?"
The solicitor reached for the pouch. His fingers hovered over it. The faintest of breeze touched the hidden little frays of his good linen shirt. His eyes twinkled as he asked, "This is but a retainer, then, my lord?"
Edwyn laughed aloud. "Ahhh… As you will, sir. I'm utterly certain that your talents and your contributions will far exceed such meager sums."
"We have an understanding, then, my lord," the solicitor said, grasping the gold.