Laborers swarmed out of the building on all sides. I snatched up as many muskets and halberds as I could. Now mostly unarmed, and surrounded by men bearing hammers, adzes, and axes, the marshals shrank back into a defensive group.

Brennan sauntered into the gap between the two groups without the least evidence that he feared the muskets pointed at him. He rolled back his sleeves and put up his hands. “I challenge you all to put down your weapons and settle this as real men do, with our fists. Who will be first? It is sure not one man of you can outlast me.”

Onion-breath man shoved past his fellows. “Let’s see what ye have got.”

They circled in the manner of men putting on a show in a boxing ring, but by the scowl on the marshal’s face and the measuring gaze of Brennan, the fight was deadly serious. The marshal broke in to throw a blow that was easily parried by Brennan, who followed with a jab that landed square on the other man’s nose. Blood gushed like a pungent iron brine. I thought it prudent to back away lest I betray myself. Other men bolted forward, and the courtyard dissolved into a mass of men slugging each other. I backed up to the cellar windows and dumped muskets and halberds into the window well. Rory watched the fight with a lazy smile.

“Aren’t you going in?” I asked. “To prove you’re a real man?”

“I’m not a man. I need prove nothing. If there’s trouble, I’ll pounce.”

“That’s not trouble?” The roil of the fight echoed against the walls.

“The marshals in Lutetia are underpaid and recruited from the plebeian class. They don’t like to arrest men who share the same grievances they do. But they have no choice but to obey orders even though they chafe at them. Now they can say they fought.”

Above, windows on the second story were thrown open. Bee stood framed in the opening.

“Enough! Those who oppress us feast on the blood we spill for them when we fight each other! Who is our true enemy? Our neighbor whose children cry for bread in the evening? Or the lord who throws the leavings from his heavily laden table to his pigs?”

As the fighting men paused to look up, women moved into the courtyard and thrust pamphlets into the hands of the marshals.

“What d’ye mean me to do with this?” shouted Onion Breath, shaking a pamphlet toward the upper windows. “D’ye think I can read?”