"Ready!"

Penþa chuckles.

"Alright then. Once upon a time ..."

... there was an old man who lived in the house on the edge of the village with his spouse, and their son and son in law. He had been a gardener, but his aging back kept him out of the fields for the most part. Instead, he used his keen dexterity and a lap-loom to weave tight and intricately colored fabrics.

He could often be found sitting on the bench by the gardens, working on his next weaving project.

One day, just after the spring equinox, he was approached by a woman named Doneg. She told him that she was pregnant, and asked him to make a swaddling blanket for her baby. In exchange, she would pay part of his meal share for the summer out of her contributions of cheese and eggs, since Organizer Kastal had not finalized things yet.

Koralhi congratulated her on having another child, especially as it had been so many years since she had þoni and Ganemki, and gladly agreed to make her a blanket. They went to visit Kastal to register the deal, and he asked her whether she wanted a design on the blanket at all.

Doneg told him that she planned to name the child Soltanes — Rose — and therefore wanted a red rose design included in the blanket.

Kastal registered the deal, and everyone went away satisfied.

The village ate well that summer, and Koralhi made good progress on—

"Yes?"

"What did the deal say?" Adresi asks, face screwed up in careful contemplation.

"Well, we don't normally keep records of every deal quite so long. But because this ended up mattering in a legal case, Kastal did actually copy it out into the records for that year. I have it here."

Penþa picks up a net from the bench, and runs their fingers along it.

"'Doneg to send the kitchens half a wheel of cheese and three weekly eggs over the summer in Koralhi's name, as payment for a baby blanket with a weaving of a rose.'," they read.

"Any other questions yet? No? Okay."

Koralhi made good progress on the blanket. He worked on it every day, to have it ready by the harvest.

Until one day, Doneg's daughter þoni came to him as he was working on the blanket. Now, we do not know exactly what was said. þoni claimed that she had only come to complain about the size of the blanket, which they could see when he worked on it by the garden. Koralhi claimed that she insulted his work, and called it worthless, saying that his work was not worth nearly what her mother was paying for it.

What we do know, is that the very next day, Koralhi visited Kastal to make a complaint about her behavior. Kastal advised him at the time that if things were as he said, then þoni had certainly been rude, but had done nothing illegal.

The next day, Doneg went to Koralhi to assure him that she was grateful for his work on the blanket, and that she would speak with her daughter about the issue of politeness.

Koralhi accepted her words, and reassured her that he held no ill will towards her, and would finish the blanket as agreed — but that he wanted þoni to apologize herself, for her rudeness.

Whether þoni did or not is not recorded, but if she didn't, Koralhi didn't make a further issue of it. Soon enough the summer passed, and the blanket neared completion.

But Doneg would not see it completed. She went into labor almost a month early, and despite the best care the village could provide, both she and the unborn Soltanes died.

The blanket was nearly done, though, and Doneg had already paid her part of the bargain. As the village mourned, Koralhi worked to finish it. He finished it just before the harvest ...

... and gave it to Ganemki.

Now Ganemki was older, and did not live with his mother on her farm, but in the village with his wife, who was a fisher. They did not have a baby at the time, but it was not a matter of waiting for the festivals, for they were newly wed and very much in love.

þoni did not think it was fair, that Koralhi had given the blanket to her brother — for she still lived in her mother's house, with her father and grandparent, and had inherited all her mother's other things, since Ganemki had married into another house.

She came to Kastal, and asked to sue for the blanket back.

Penþa accepts a cup of berry juice handed up to them, and takes a sip.

"And what happened next?" Daskal asks, leaning forward. The firelight creates shifting motes of light and shadow, reflected in his eyes.

"Well, Organizer Kastal investigated to see what people had to say, and listened to everybody's arguments, and rendered a judgement," Penþa explains. "But this isn't an ordinary story — I want to see what you think should have been done. So imagine that you're Organizer Kastal. What would you need to discover or look up to know whether þoni should get the blanket?"

"Did Doneg say who she wanted to have it?" one child asks.

Penþa nods in acknowledgement of the question.

"Kastal specifically said in her record of the judgement that Doneg had not arranged anything like that ahead of time," they answer. "Yes?"

"Well, even if she didn't tell the Organizer, did anyone in the village say whether she expected anyone to get it?" another child asks.

"During the trial þoni claimed that Doneg expected her to inherit everything," Penþa explained. "Nobody else came forward to say one way or the other. Ganemki didn't contest that everything was expected to go to þoni, but he did say that he liked the blanket, and expected to put it to good use."

The children think about this for a moment. Lhemur quietly starts tapping out the beat to a thinking song on his drum.

"Well, did Koralhi say why he gave the blanket to Ganemki?"

A few of the adults around Penþa click in approval.

"An excellent question," they reply. "Koralhi said that he gave the blanket to Ganemki because he figured either of Doneg's children could inherit it, and he didn't want to give the blanket to someone who wouldn't appreciate it."

"But, if þoni didn't think the blanket was valuable, why did she want it?" Daskal asks. 

"Another good question — alright, I think you've asked enough questions to hear the next part of the story," Penþa decides. "So Organizer Kastal asked some of those same questions ..."

... including why þoni wanted the blanket.

þoni was initially reluctant to explain, but eventually she explained to Kastal that she had initially snapped at Koralhi because she was afraid for her mother's health. Everyone knows that older mothers often have more trouble with birth, and that it's important for pregnant people to eat well, so that the baby is born healthy.

þoni blamed the fact that her mother had given up so many eggs over the course of the summer for her poor health, and didn't think that a baby blanket was worth it, when they had þoni's own old baby blanket that could have been used again for Soltanes.

Koralhi pointed out that this meant she had not been truthful with him — she didn't think his work was worthless, but just that her mother should not have bought it.

þoni disagreed, saying that was what she said at the time, and that Koralhi was deliberately misunderstanding her.

Kastal had them both stop, so that she could think.

"So — does that prompt any new questions?" Penþa asks.

"... what does the law say?" one child asks.

Penþa chuckles. "You're going to have to be a little more specific than that," they respond. "What does the law say about what?"

"When someone inherits a ... something that's not a thing, does it work just like a thing?" they clarify.

Penþa picks up a different net, and quotes from it.

"'Debts and promises may only ever accrue to the descendants of the dead in their favor; except in this way, their distribution is to be determined according to the same rules as for tangible property. Debts owed by the dead are forgiven.'," they read.

"Um."

The child wrinkles their nose.

"That wasn't really what I wanted to know, I guess. Was the inheritance the blanket, or the deal for a blanket?"

Penþa tilts their head.

"How do you think it would make a difference?"

"Well, if it was this specific blanket, then it's a problem, but if she just inherited the deal for a blanket, then she could get a different blanket and everything would be fine."

"But the deal was specifically for a blanket with a rose on it, remember?" Penþa replies.

"Well, did they have any other rose blankets?" a different child asks.

Penþa thinks for a moment, and spends a moment checking a later section of the trial transcript.

"It's not recorded, so we can't be sure. But I think it was unlikely — there are lots of things that can go on blankets, not just roses. So even if they had plenty of blankets they might not have had other rose ones."

"But do inheritances all go by the household, normally?" one of the adults asks. Their neighbor raises an eyebrow at them. "What, I'm not allowed to get invested in the story too?"

"Well, I'll accept it, since it's another good question," Penþa jokes. "Let me see ... 'And when the deceased does not express a preference, their belongings are to be given to their spouse, and then to their children, and then to their parents, and then to their householders, and then to the village entire, excepting that any of those should be estranged from them.'"

"... I think maybe we need to revise that law. That's not really clear," they comment.

"But was Ganemki es-, uh, es-tranged? Or was he normal?"

"When two people are 'estranged', it means that they don't like each other, and have formally given up the bonds that would otherwise tie them together," Penþa explains. "And even though Ganemki lived in the village, not with his mother, they weren't estranged. He went to visit her frequently, and they were on good terms."

"So ... did Doneg have a spouse?" one of the children asks, working through it.

"She did not. Her wife had died two years previously, actually," Penþa answers.

"Well, then why wouldn't it have been okay for Koralhi to give the blanket to Ganemki?" they ask. "If the law is that it goes to her children, and he's her child?"

"Well, what do you think? Is that your final answer, that it was okay for Koralhi to give Ganemki the blanket? Or do you think there's more to know?" Penþa questions.

"Why do things get given to householders first, before going to the rest of the village?" Daskal asks.

"Ah, good question. The reasoning is not, unfortunately, included in the law. Later organizers tasked with interpreting the law have generally held that the idea is that your things should go to people you choose to associate more closely with — which is why spouses are ranked higher on the list than parents or children," Penþa explains. "Does that matter in this case?"

"Well, yeah. If Doneg was closer to her, because she lived in the same house ..." Daskal begins.

Another child interrupts.

"But lots of people have brothers! Even if it wasn't written down, what does the organizer do when they're recording debts?"

"You mean when the organizer is recording inherited debts, who they give the debt to?" Penþa clarifies.

"Yeah."

"Traditionally, the organizer splits the debts between everyone in a category. So if Doneg had been owed six eggs, then þoni and Ganemki would both be owed three," Penþa explains.

"... well, that should probably get actually written into the law," the same villager as before murmurs to their neighbor.

"So if it was the deal for the blanket they inherited, shouldn't they each get half of it?"

"Well, there was only one blanket. And remember, this is a baby blanket — it would not be nearly as useful, if it was cut in half. That would just make everyone worse off."

"But ..."

Andresi frowns, but can't quite articulate his point.

The adults seem to have clued in, to what the solution in the story is going to be, but they stay silent so that the children can think a bit longer.

"Ganemki could pay þoni for the blanket!" Daskal announces. "They can't split the blanket, but if Ganemki got the blanket and þoni got half the value of the blanket, then everything would be fair, wouldn't it?"

Penþa nods.

"That's one solution," they agree. "How much would you have Ganemki pay?"

"Um. Half the blanket's value?" Daskal repeats, a bit confused.

"Sorry, let me rephrase: how much is that? Remember, þoni thought the blanket was worth less than Doneg paid for it. Doneg clearly thought it was worth that much, as did Koralhi. So would it be fair to make Ganemki pay more than his sister thought half of it was worth?"

Daskal thinks through it.

"... well, þoni thought she should get the whole blanket. So if she only gets the worth of half of it ... no, half of what Ganemki thinks the worth is, that might be more than she thought it was worth, and she should be happy. Or it might be less than she thought it was worth, and she wouldn't be satisfied. But Ganemki would like either of them less than just having the blanket ..."

"... it's not about the blanket," one child realizes. "þoni doesn't really want the blanket — she doesn't need it. She's just sad because her mother died, and she's angry about it."

The adults click in acknowledgement again.

"That's a very good point," Penþa agrees. "Does it change what the right thing for Organizer Kastal to do is?"

"I don't know! This is hard."

The adults chuckle.

"So it is," Penþa agrees. "Being organizer is hard work, just like fishing or farming. It's just a different kind of hard."

They clap their hands.

"Alright, let's recap. Koralhi wanted the blanket to go to Ganemki, because he was mad at þoni. Ganemki wanted the blanket to use for his own child. þoni wanted the blanket because she had complex feelings about her mother's death, and saw the blanket as being partially the cause of her death. Koralhi thinks the blanket is worth more than þoni does; Ganemki hasn't said how much he thinks the blanket is worth. Traditionally, the worth of the blanket should have been split between them, but legally it doesn't have to be, and there's an argument that it should have gone to þoni with the other physical goods," Penþa summarizes.

"Daskal has suggested that Ganemki could pay þoni to make things fair. Are there any other solutions?"

The children think.

"I want to know why we didn't clean up the inheritance laws in the wake of all this," one of the adults asks. "It sounds like something that should have been taken care of."

"Well ... part of the problem is that the whole trial got very involved. þoni and Koralhi were both popular with different sections of the village, and there was a lot of discussion and arguing before it actually went to the organizer for judgement," Penþa explains. "My guess is that feelings were sufficiently raw once everything was concluded that people felt as though revising the inheritance laws in a way that would have made one party or the other clearly in the right would have been seen as taking sides. And by the time that died down, people had mostly forgotten about the issue."

"Which is another reason I think this was an excellent story to bring up this year. It's been three sixes of sixes years — so maybe the drama has finally died down enough for us to clarify things," they continue, inciting scattered laughter. "We can talk about how the law should be re-drafted once the story has finished."

"I think þoni should get the blanket, and then give it to Ganemki," Andresi decides. "Since she wants to get the blanket, but he wants to have it."

Penþa nods. "Alright. Anyone else?"

The children issue various denials.

"Alright. Here's how old Organizer Kastal solved it ..."

Kastal ruled that everything had been conducted according to law, and therefore nothing illegal had happened. However, that still left the matter of politeness.

Koralhi, when he gave the blanket to Ganemki, had done so explicitly to snub þoni. Had he done so simply as a matter of course, it would not have been impolite. As things stood, however, he had been impolite to þoni — as þoni had allegedly been to him.

So Kastal said that þoni should apologize, and acknowledge the work that went into constructing the blanket. Ganemki should give the blanket back to Koralhi, who would, upon accepting þoni's apology, give it to her.

Many people were unhappy with this decision, and grumbled that Kastal was not being fair. But she had been their organizer for many years, and they trusted her to be right.

Ganemki returned the blanket to Koralhi.

þoni apologized to Koralhi for insulting the value of his work, and acknowledged that it was a beautiful blanket.

And Koralhi gave the blanket to her, and told her how sad he was to hear of her mother's passing.

At that point, people thought the matter resolved, but Kastal had one more thing to say: although Ganemki had not brought it up, it would also be polite to let him have some of the things from his mother's estate. After all, he had visited her and cared for her as well, and it was not wholly fair for everything to fall to þoni.

Kastal suggested that þoni and Ganemki take the time to decide what he could keep, to remember their mother by.

They had that discussion privately, and that is the end of the record of the trial.

But five sixths of a year later, Ganemki had a child, who he and his spouse named Soltanes.

"In turn, they grew up and had a daughter named Margesi, who had a son named Domer, who had a child named Penþa."

They half turn on their bench to show off their shawl. There is a worn and faded rose woven into one shoulder.

"And that is the story of how the matter of the blanket was decided," they conclude. "Now, I have one final question, before I let everyone get back to dancing. Who was right?"

"... I don't think anybody was right. Everybody knew Koralhi was a good weaver; it shouldn't matter that þoni didn't like him. And þoni kind of made a big fuss, if Ganemki ended up with the blanket anyway," Daskal opines.

"þoni was right," another child replies. "Organizer Kastal thought so, since she made Koralhi give her the blanket."

"No, Koralhi was right — he didn't do anything illegal, and he was only rude because þoni was rude first," a different child interjects.

"Is that always what it's like to be an organizer?" Andresi asks.

"Oh, no. Most of the time, things go perfectly smoothly. We have a prosperous and peaceful village, and I rarely have to solve disputes like that. But every year or two something complicated comes up, and it's important to have someone who everybody trusts to find the right answer," Penþa replies.

"Well — I think we're done with the story. You all did very well. I was impressed with how many useful questions you thought to ask. Now it's my turn to think. Artem, Lhemur, would you two start us in on another song?"

And as the musicians strike up a tune, Penþa steps down off of their bench, and finishes the rest of their berry juice. They won't approach the child tonight — too many kids who don't actually want to be the organizer would feel bad about "losing" — but they think they know, now, who would make a good apprentice.

They look out over the village, the firelight making the jumping and whirling dancers look almost like flames themselves. They feel the pleasant fullness that lingers from the harvest feast. And they think that everything is exactly as it ought to be.