Herald Mirilin was the sole arbiter here; those who brought grievances to him either had tried the regular courts and were unsatisfied, or felt that a regular court would not be as responsive to their grievances as a single Herald would. The Herald sat at a table at the back of the room, within a sort of partition that took up the back fifth or so, divided from the rest of room by a low balustrade. Those whose cases were being heard stood before him, while those still waiting, and interested parties, sat on rows of backless benches on the other side of the railing. Selenay sat beside Mirilin, industriously taking notes, while Alberich stood behind them both and attempted to look like a superfluous statue.

As far as Alberich could judge, the people here ranged in income level from well-off to impoverished. In age, they tended to be middle-aged folk, with a sprinkling of elders. The cases were astonishingly petty, which surprised him. Someone had loaned an object, or money, and the person to whom it had been lent now claimed it was a gift. A child had vandalized something, and the parents disclaimed responsibility. A dog was permitted to run loose and had bitten someone. A chicken flew into a yard and ate seeds and young plants; the angry householder caught, killed, and ate it, and the owner claimed compensation.

None of this was earth-shattering, and all of it would have been settled in Karse with some form of personal confrontation among the parties concerned. In a village, it was usually the responsibility of the headman or council of elders to sort it all out—in a city, well, it generally came to blows.

Alberich wasn’t quite sure why anyone “official” was involved in these cases at all. And even if the idea was to keep public fighting at a minimum, there were courts to handle these cases, according to Selenay. Why were Heralds concerned with these ridiculous little domestic problems at all? More importantly, at least as far as this “bodyguard” business was concerned, what was Selenay learning here that was vital enough to put her here, where she was very vulnerable?