Alec pretended to hesitate, then turned away and fished a couple of copper pennies from the small pouch around his neck under his tattered gown. “Will that do?”

“Yeah, he was raven folk,” the boy said as he reached to snatch the coins from Alec’s outstretched hand.

But Alec held them back. “For this, I ’spect more of an answer than that. What’d you two trade?”

The boy opened his left hand and showed Alec a yellow rock crystal. “I give him my hog tooth necklace. Easy enough to come by another. Ain’t seen nothing like this, though.”

“That is fine,” Alec replied. It was a pretty thing, and a far cry from anything the boy was likely to find here. But it was a far cry from a sweetmeat, too.

“Sell it to you.” The boy jutted his chin at the coins Alec still held.

Alec pretended to consider it, then nodded and took out two more coins. The boy tossed him the stone, and Alec handed over the price.

“We finished?” asked the boy, still gripping his knife. “I got nothin’ more to trade or sell.”

“That’s fine.” Tucking the stone away, Alec turned to take his leave, but alert to any sound of the boy coming to knife him. Glancing back, though, he was already gone.

Seregil kept his distance, blending in with the crowd of destitute and cutthroats coming out like bats as the light failed. He dogged the one-eyed man, hoping to see him do another trade, but the old codger seemed to have somewhere to go, for he went on without pausing anywhere, head down and limping a bit. Dressed no better or worse than those around him, he attracted no one else’s attention, and no one greeted him.

It took him a moment to notice the tall, dark-haired man trailing the old one. At first he thought it might be coincidence, but when the old man turned, so did the big man. Seregil frowned; the last thing he needed was for the old man to get murdered in front of him before he could talk to him.

Drifting along behind them, Seregil caught glimpses of the old man’s face when he turned down a byway, and then another. Though the bowed legs could have made him a horseman, a cripple, or just undernourished, he had the rolling gait of a sailor. Perhaps the raven folk did come from somewhere else, by ship, or from a seafaring people.

The taller man’s face was hidden by his cloak hood but Seregil guessed from his stride and those broad shoulders that he was more than a match for the old fellow, and could easily have overtaken him by now, if he’d wanted to. Perhaps Tall Fellow expected Old Fellow to lead him somewhere? If so, Seregil suspected it might be of interest to him, as well.