The Shattered Charter

The Shattered Charter is kept in fragments, copies, court memories, and the dangerous confidence of men who claim to know what the missing clauses meant. Its pages smell of smoke, wax, old leather, and damp stone. Some are burned at the edges; some contradict one another; some are guarded in Varhold as if parchment could bleed. Yet the Charter still governs because the Marches need something older than appetite to argue around. It names roads, keeps, toll rights, court duties, and obligations between high seat and wardens. Every claimant invokes it. Every village asks what the Charter has repaired lately.