“Every one. And every man in a radical’s cap was arrested and his family threatened. Hundreds have been transported to the north. There they must labor with their sweat and their blood in the mines of the Barrens. The salt they haul up in buckets flavors the prince’s food while his subjects go hungry. The iron they dig out of the rock forges the swords that kill us.”

His poem of grievances so stunned me that I could not help but think of the promises General Camjiata had made. The music of revolution had a more urgent melody when heard in a city where so many voices had been so recently silenced. I wanted to give him hope. “I heard a rumor that the general is returning to Europa. He’ll proclaim a legal code that abolishes the ancient privileges of princes and mage Houses.”

“Rumor is like a woman’s promise that she’ll kiss you. Have you a kiss for me, lass?”

“I don’t kiss just any man I see! Only the ones I want to kiss! Did I give you reason to think otherwise?”

“A brave man must have taken on the taming of you!” he said with a laugh that made me want to skewer him.

“Our thanks to you for helping us,” Bee said as she slipped the cheese knife out of my hand. As if I could not control my temper!

He smiled as easily at her as he had at me a moment before. “My trials were made easier by my knowing such a beautiful young woman was spared thereby.” He glanced up as the door opened and the woman appeared.

He rose. “Time for you to move on. I saw with my own eyes when the mansa of Four Moons House came to Fox Close with his djeli to set the mirror in place. An impressive man, the mansa. Rioters had set a barricade in the road and set it afire. He put out the bonfire with a blast of hail and cold wind that shattered windows and made every hearth fire go out. His men will come to see who opened the door. I don’t reckon you want to be here when they get here.”

“Cat, let’s go now.” Rory’s gaze flickered toward the man, and then toward the woman, and then back to us.

“Of course,” I agreed, smiling at the woman, who stared dourly back at me. “Have you any word of where these particular birds might have flown?”

“To another nest east of here by name of Havery.”

“My thanks to you for the information, and the food and drink.”

“May Bright Venus bring fertility to you and your brave man,” he replied. He laughed as I blushed.

We took our leave and stumped along Enterprise Road in a plaguing rain.