“I suppose you’re friends with them?” asked the burgher’s wife. “You arrived with them, and all?”

“I never did.” Brrr tried harder for a tone of offense. “I have nothing to do with them.”

“If you’re not their weird bodyguard, then why en’t you chasing them away for us? They’d run from you soon enough.”

“I have nothing against trolls,” said Brrr.

“That’s a medal you got on your chest, en’t it?” She glowered at him. “A medal for what? Valor in the line of shopping?”

“I was hoping to find the soldiers’ garrison at Tenniken. This is all a mistake.”

“What the soldiers wouldn’t do with the likes of you!” She pursed her raspy lips at him and lowered her chin to look out under her brow, like a lizard from under a rock.

He stopped trying to explain. He only wished he could fade into the shadows in the shop the way, so conveniently, he’d been able to camouflage himself in the shadows of woodlands.

Before the Glikkuns outside could move on, the lane was filled with the stutter of drumming. The Traum Defense Brigade, no doubt. The goodwife looked hopeful at the thought of an encounter.

Not yet ready for a face-off-not with the baby troll drooling into its bibbing-Sakkali Oafish turned her group toward the doors of the shop.

“My virtue,” said the goodwife to the clerk. “Shut the door, can’t you?”

The clerk strode forward and said, streetward, “We’re closed to all but residents with town accounts.”

Sakkali put her foot in the door jamb. Her glance betrayed little fear. When she spoke, her voice was low and full of rasp. “Is that so? Then the Lion lives in Traum?” One hand settled on the infant’s scalp, the other one on the hilt of her dirk.

A silence ensued. “She has a point,” said the clerk to Brrr. “You’ll have to leave.”

“This is unseemly,” said the schoolmaster. “There’s no need-”

“I insist, or I’ll summon the merchant defense,” said the clerk. “I can’t tell the boss that his shipment of deluxe Dixxi House dinner services got shattered in a brawl.”

“I don’t have the stomach for shopping today,” said Brrr at last.

The door closed behind Brrr. He could hear the angry click of the bolt against the strike. Apparently that honorable schoolmaster had elected solidarity with his fellow citizens.

“You choose to stand with the aggrieved,” said Sakkali Oafish admiringly.

“I choose no such thing,” snapped Brrr. He looked up the way, and down. He wanted to get out of Traum before things became more unpleasant. “I don’t suppose you know the way to Tennikin? Where the soldiers are?”

“The Wizard’s soldiers?” Sakkali Oafish spat at their name.

“I knew a soldier who was-” But Brrr couldn’t think of how to describe Jemmsy.

She was quick, that Sakkali. “You knew a soldier who betrayed his orders by befriending you?”

The local militia turned into the high street. A motley mob of overweight merchants, nervous teenagers, that same miserable minister with his beard. Some pitchforks, a rolling pin, several guns looking all too dangerous.