Little by little, life in the Spicy Boar slipped back into its former course. Rize and Niko once more woke side by side, chopped vegetables, changed the straw upon the floor, and even scrubbed that hateful cauldron. The cat returned to the full, stifling hall, still deftly flinging food before the customers. The strain between her and Colette had not vanished, yet it had eased, for the full moon had passed and there was no lack of work.

  There was another matter besides — the children were waiting with keen anticipation for Gyuste’s long-promised performance, which was expected on the next Meoris. And near enough everyone in Anzi and the neighboring districts was waiting for it too.

  A graver piece of news was the spread of the Church of the Twelve’s influence, a thing much discussed in the tavern. Craftsmen and merchants quoted Lambert’s speeches, and spoke of preachers come from other towns.

  “He said it right enough!” “I never expected as much from a priest of Alladon.” “How can the divine order pass us by?”

  Such talk was growing ever more common — in the market, in the docks, in the workshops. No one whispered now or held his tongue. Quite the reverse: having heard these new ideas, the townsfolk had begun to turn them over in their own minds.

  “Heresy, that is,” Hemile muttered one day. “The order has stood a thousand years and all was well enough, and now folk are displeased with something or other. Our betters labor for our sakes, and these mummers prattle of equality. The gall of it!”

  “I’d hear them out,” Colette answered from behind the counter. She was counting copper coins, and her eyes shone with more than the glitter of the metal. “Your lords choke us with taxes, and the guild does the same. If even one decent man has appeared, what is so ill in that?”

  “You understand nothing!” the old man snapped, waving a hand. “Nor do I, for it is not our place to understand. But this rabble Lambert has gathered now takes itself for theologians.”

  Rize listened with half an ear, not always grasping all of it, yet she remembered her meeting with Lambert clearly enough: perhaps he might tell her more of Veridan? Or in this new world of his would the city become a great forest?

  The road to Bushen’s bakery was short, but the frost still found its way beneath Niko’s rags. Rize went beside him, her nose hidden in her collar.

  The bakery breathed out a kindly heat. The smell of fresh bread and yeast struck her full in the face, and Rize’s stomach treacherously clenched. Bushen himself, red-cheeked and sweating, gave them little more than a nod before he set to laying hot loaves into wicker baskets.

  While he rattled trays and boards, Lotte came out from behind the counter, dressed as ever in several layers of flour-whitened clothes.

  “Hello,” she said softly, and at once was seized by a dry, tearing cough.

  “Hello...” Niko faltered, shifting from one foot to the other.

  Lotte turned her gaze to Rize. Curiosity gleamed in her eyes.

  “Papa said no one had seen you in a long while. I... I was beginning to fear something had happened to you.”

  “Snneezzed,” Rize answered shortly, trying to mimic the way humans spoke. “Paws were aching.”

  Lotte coughed again, this time more quietly.

  “It’s bad to be ill. Especially now. Meoris is coming soon — Papa says everyone will be out celebrating, but he won’t go. He says he’ll be busy.”

  Niko looked at the baskets, then at his friend, but said nothing, not daring to speak. Rize, remembering Gyuste and his promise, stepped forward.

  “Yes,” she said. “C-come with us, do you know of Tarian?”

  The girl nodded.

  “I do. I even saw him once. I’ll have to ask Papa. If he lets me, I’ll surely come!”

  “We’ll be on the roof,” Niko added, heartened now.

  “On the roof?” the girl asked in surprise. “I... I don’t think I can climb up there. How can anyone even get up?”

  “You can see well from there,” the boy answered, scratching his head. “I-I’ll help you up.”

  “Then good!” Lotte smiled.

  Bushen set the last basket upon the counter with a thump.

  “Take them. And do not spill them on the way,” he said, glancing at his daughter. “Don’t stand in the draught.”

  Niko hoisted the heavier basket, and Rize took the lighter one. As she left, she looked back. Lotte was waving at them, and despite the cough her face was alight with the expectation of something wondrous.

  The market square hummed. In the days Rize had spent within the tavern’s four walls, tall scaffolds had risen there, and folk were already gathering round them. Some she remembered from the market.

  “I’ll look for Lotte!” Niko shouted in her ear, and plunged into the press of bodies.

  Rize drew her collar tighter and searched the crowd for familiar faces. No easy business, with everyone swaddled in several layers of clothes. Letting out a breath, she climbed up onto the roof, having noticed that someone was already seated on the next one over. Two someones — and they had noticed her. Moved by curiosity and instinct alike, the cat ran across the flaking timber, much gladdened when she caught the familiar scent of moss.

  “Well, look what we have here — such a great hulking thing,” Arden said. “Still got a splitting head?”

  “Hello, Rize,” Farra said shortly, tangling herself in her cloak.

  “Herrro... Hed don’t ache,” Rize fell silent, looking around, then down below. “Where are the others?”

  “Tamas is sulking, says he’s no time for foolery,” Arden said with a dismissive wave. “And Node and Liya have vanished again.”

  Flushed and bewildered, Niko darted up and down the aisle, looking round.

  “Niko! Here!”

  Lotte stood a few paces away, waving to him. She was wrapped in a heavy scarf, so that only her shining eyes could be seen. Niko took her by the hand.

  “So you don’t get lost,” he said, turning his face aside.

  The roof was not high, and from the alley side a heap of crates leaned up against it. Not without trouble, Lotte managed to climb.

  Once atop it, Niko froze. Arden’s and Farra’s presence made him flinch. Arden looked down on him coldly, almost with lazy contempt. A strained silence fell.

  “I remember you!” Lotte cried. “You stole bread from Papa... Oh! They’re starting!”

  She pointed to the stage, where the first torch leapt upward, scattering sparks.

  “Let’s not fight,” she added, and her honest childish delight suddenly broke through the crust of their common tension.

  Arden eased his shoulders a little and turned his gaze away from Niko toward the stage. The tension did not vanish altogether, but it drew back, drowned beneath the first beat of the drum that proclaimed the play’s beginning.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Oil lamps flared upon the boards, and Gyuste, transformed past knowing, sprang into the middle of the circle. He wore a tattered cloak embroidered with false gold, and in his hands he clutched a wooden sword.

  “Look ye, good people!” he cried, pointing grandly toward imaginary castle walls. “Whilst you gnaw crusts, rams grow fat in their halls! Fat, slothful rams in silk, guarded by hounds in mail!”

  The crowd answered with an approving murmur. Gyuste-as-Tarian sprang lightly over painted crates, acting out how he robbed the treasury of an evil duke. Every movement of his was wide and sweeping. The scene of the theft was broken off by guards in mock armor, who gave chase to him under the music.

  They vanished behind the curtains.

  When Lusena came upon the stage in the role of Lady Annet, a breath of wonder ran through the crowd. She wore a white gown stitched with glass beads that gleamed in the torchlight. Its heavy train swept the dusty boards of the stage, and her high coiffure swayed with the rhythm of her steps.

  Rize went still, unable to tear her eyes from the shimmer of the cloth.

  “So pretty... shining.”

  Beside her, Farra and Lotte watched with that same rapt wonder. To them, Lady Annet was the very shape of a dream one would never meet in the alleys of Sharto.

  “Look at that dress,” Lotte whispered, forgetting her cough for a moment. “It’s as though she’s wearing the stars...”

  Then the fighting began again.

  Niko leaned forward, following every sweep of the thief’s sword. Hemile had likely fought like that himself many years ago.

  “How can anyone be so brave? To challenge the guards like that!? It’s as though he’s laughing at them!”

  Arden stood with his arms folded across his chest, listening to the words about freedom, rams, and hounds.

  Gyuste, performing a difficult pirouette with the “stolen” casket, let his gaze slide over the front rows for a moment. There, in the foremost row, he suddenly saw Karen. A pleased, almost venomous smile played upon her lips. For the briefest instant Gyuste stumbled, feeling a chill beneath his cloak, but at once he went on, pouring even greater passion into the role.

  Karen did not move. She merely watched this farce with that infuriating air of understanding all.

  When Tarian was at last reunited with Annet to the crowd’s rapturous cries, the square burst into applause. Karen, without changing her expression, slowly and deliberately clapped along with the rest. The moment the tattered curtain fell, she turned and vanished into the crowd as quietly as she had come.

  When the last chords of the lute faded and the crowd broke into shouting, Rize felt a strange excitement. She did not want the tale to end just yet.

  “Let’s go!” she cried, tugging Niko and Lotte by the sleeves. “Let’s find where they’re hiding.”

  At the entrance behind the curtains stood a tall bald man in armor made of painted wood. He had played one of the guards. Seeing a whole heap of children running toward him, he looked surprised at first, then stepped forward and blocked the way.

  “Hey! Hey! Give us time to change at least.”

  Rize stepped to the front.

  “I’m Gyuste’s apprrentice. Let us through!”

  The bald man hesitated, then his eyes went wide.

  “You’re Rize, aren’t you!? Gyuste told me about you — go on then... I suppose...”

  Without waiting for him to finish, the little ones ran round him and slipped inside.

  Behind the curtains — if one could call it that, a space cut off from the square by a pair of grimy cloths — chaos reigned. It smelled of sweat, cheap paint, and torch-smoke. Lusena was trying to untangle a knot in her “diamond” belt when she saw Lotte and Farra standing a step away from her, scarcely daring to breathe. They looked at her as though she were something from another world.

  “My lady...” Lotte breathed, reaching a hand toward the hem of the gown, only to snatch it back at once, frightened by her own boldness.

  Lusena turned. Her face, thickly powdered with chalk, softened.

  “Not a lady, dear heart,” she said with a tired smile, settling herself upon a crate. “Only Lusena. But if you like, you may touch the fabric. It’s ordinary silk, only well washed.”

  The girls began at once to touch the cloth with eager interest.

  Meanwhile Rize went over to Gyuste. He was wiping sweat from his brow, still clutching the wooden sword.

  “You shouted well,” she said.

  “I did my best, eh, girl,” the bard said, bending toward his pupil. “Now that the play is done, we may return to our lessons. There is still so much I would teach you!”

  She nodded.

  “And Tarian — was he real, or did you make him up?” Niko asked.

  Gyuste narrowed his eyes with a sly look.

  “Let us say this much: the bit about the rams and the hounds was said by an old friend of mine.”

  The heavy curtain-cloth was drawn aside.

  “How can this be!” Gyuste protested, turning round. “This is no common thoroughfare — my troupe needs—”

  The bard fell silent, having recognized Lambert. His plain robe stood in stark contrast to the actors’ bright rags, yet there was such dignity in the preacher’s bearing that all eyes turned to him.

  “Master Gyuste,” Lambert’s voice rang out beneath the canopy. “That was powerful. Your stories catch the spirit of change better than my sermons. You speak to the people in the language of feeling, and it answers in their hearts.”

  Gyuste, who never lacked for words, found none now.

  “Well... thank you, I... we, we thought on it a long while...”

  Interested by the arrival of this all-knowing man, Rize had just begun to step toward him with a question when Arden, who had been standing in the shadows till then, came forward. His gaze, cold and appraising, settled upon Lambert.

  “How do you manage it?” he asked bluntly. “You’re no count, no duke, and yet everyone talks of you.”

  Lambert answered calmly.

  “I give voice to what is already in men’s minds. I give a name to their pain. That is all.”

  “So the play pleased you?” Arden jerked his head toward the stage. “Meaning you like the notion that the nobles are rams, guarded by hounds who must be fought. Then tell me, preacher — why do you not call the people to battle yourself? Do you believe in change and in any meaning to it, or are you but another player in a show?”

  All fell silent, watching with keen interest.

  Arden kept staring, sharp and unblinking, waiting for an answer. Lambert inclined his head a little to one side.

  “There is always meaning where a man refuses to be a slave. And there is always a chance,” he said, pausing as his gaze passed over those gathered there. “But I do not believe Tarian’s methods are the only ones. History knows of wars ended by a word rather than by a sword.”

  Arden stepped outside, a thoughtful look upon his face.

  “We’re leaving,” he threw to Farra. After a brief moment of uncertainty, she ran after him.

  The square was slowly emptying, leaving behind only the smell of soot and trampled dirty snow.

  Lotte, still radiant, gave Niko’s hand a tight squeeze in farewell.

  “Thank you for asking me. I... I’ll surely live till spring now,” she said with a soft laugh, though the laugh turned at once into her habitual cough.

  Covering her mouth with her scarf, she hurried toward her father’s shop, where a warm light still burned in the windows.

  Lambert did not seem in any haste to leave. Rize saw him beckon Gyuste and the other actors aside. They bent close together, and the actors’ faces grew serious in an instant.

  “Run, or Colette will tear our heads off!” Niko yanked Rize by the hand, and they ran through the alleyways, leaping over puddles, talking over one another as they went about all they had seen.

  “Did you see the way he swung that sword?” Niko rattled on, breathless with running and delight. “One stroke — and the guard’s in the bushes! And the way he spoke of the rams? Right to the point!”

  “Yes! Yes!” Rize chimed in. “Serves them rright!”

  Breathless and flushed, they ran back to the Spicy Boar. Niko shoved open the heavy oak door.

  The younger ones burst into the kitchen just in time for the supper hour. Driven on by the mistress, they set to work. Still carried high by the joy of the day, they made it through yet another hard evening, feeding all the visitors with fish soup.

  At the stroke of the bell the tavern emptied. Weary but content, Rize and Niko settled as ever by the hearth, when suddenly they heard a knock at the door. Then another.

  “Who could that be?” Niko whispered in fear. “It’s curfew already!”

  “Let’s see!” Rize proposed at once.

  The little ones peered into the hall, where Colette stood with an oil lantern in hand. The knocking continued, and she went to the door.

  “We’re closed!” the mistress called.

  Rize and Niko heard no answer from the other side, yet for some reason Colette hastened to open it.

  The cat crept farther behind the serving table — from there the entrance could be seen more clearly. Outside stood a tall figure in a dark cloak...