Juniper's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

They left the horses at a public rail and walked the last block together. The hunter leaned hard on one of his cut staves. Juniper carried a covered basket against her hip and a rolled scroll under her arm. The courthouse rose at the end of the street, heavy stone and tall doors carved with scales and chains. A granite pillar stood in the yard before it, roots twisting at its base. The hunter stopped there and sat on the stone step beside it. He said he would wait for the clerk's call. Juniper went up the steps alone. The clerk was the same one who had refused her the first time. He sat behind a long counter. Behind him, on a marble pedestal, a locked glass case held an old parchment under brass. He did not look up when she set down her papers. He asked her to state a lawful purpose for the land. She said sanctuary for hunted creatures. He shook his head. He said sanctuary was not a recognized purpose in the registry. He said she could claim it for grazing, for timber, for tillage, or for residence. He said anything else had no standing. Juniper laid the rolled scroll on the counter and untied it. The seal was old, the symbols druidic, the borders marked in faded ink. She said a surveyor had drawn this boundary before the courts kept their own records. She said the valley had been recognized as a warded place long before the registry existed. The clerk picked it up by the edges. He read it twice. He said it was old work, and likely genuine, but it did not name a lawful purpose either. He set it down. She lifted the cloth off the basket. The fire-moth climbed out onto her wrist. It opened its wings slowly, ember light moving across the counter and the clerk's hands. The clerk went still. Juniper said this one had been kept in a jar by three hunters when she found it. She said it would have died in a week. She said she did not need a new word in the registry. She needed residence. She lived in the valley. She had lived there for years. The creatures lived with her. That was the same thing. The clerk watched the moth fold its wings. He drew a fresh form from a drawer. He wrote residence in the purpose line and turned the page toward her. He said he would hear the witness now. Juniper carried the moth back outside in her cupped hands. The hunter pushed himself up off the step and limped to the pillar in the yard. He laid his hand on the stone top and gave his name to the clerk who had followed her out. The clerk wrote down every word. When the hunter finished, the clerk stamped the page and signed the deed. He handed it to Juniper. The valley was hers in law. She folded the paper and put it inside her coat. The hunter sat back down on the step. His knee had begun to bleed through the cloth.