The Winter of Empty Courts

The Winter of Empty Courts came after war and plague had made formal justice too slow to matter. Judges stopped travelling. Toll violence hardened. Villages locked gates against neighbours. Men with bread became lords for a week, and men with knives became law until someone stronger arrived. The Greycloak Rangers and local witnesses began holding emergency courts by milepost, bridge, and hearth, with snow at the doors and fear in every testimony. What began as necessity became precedent. Old nobles still resent that survival invented law without asking their permission.