Courts are for Kings (Fourth River Freedom)
Buried midway down the list is one that undergirds them all: law within the River Kingdoms is malleable, and the rulers of a kingdom do as they wish. In their lands, one must obey. Whether a visitor is a commoner or a neighboring king, all are subject to a lord’s law within his own territory, and anyone who disobeys must be prepared for punishment or a declaration of war.
As a result, rulers seldom visit each other directly. Intermediaries do the talking, even when lords are scant miles away. When face-to-face negotiations occur, the monarchs often take great pains to protect their own sovereignty, even going so far as to set up camp tents on shared borders, talking across a rope line hung with pennants from both kingdoms. The major exception is the yearly Outlaw Council, where the meeting hall is considered politically neutral.