“If you cannot, then whose fault is that? The lord’s children can all read. They who hold the lash do not want you to know you are not alone in speaking against its cruel bite! Why do you think they hate printing presses or any person whose voice spreads the news of a declaration of rights? Why do you think they fear a civil code whose laws will demolish the privileges of the few? Why do you think they send the likes of you to arrest printers and smash presses? Not for your sake! They aren’t protecting you! Go on, then! Go, but remember that you are our brothers. Remember that we fight for you.”

She stepped back into the gloom as Rory tugged on my wrist. Abandoning the weapons, we passed through a carpentry shop smelling of sawdust and hurried by diverse passages into a hidden staircase and thus out onto another street. Brennan strode up with Bee. He had a scuffed chin and an abrasion on his right cheek. His trousers were ripped at the left knee.

“I’m getting slow,” he said. “Invincible Andraste! How did you do that, Cat?”

Bee shook her head to indicate that whatever else she had told Brennan, my secrets had never passed her lips. “It’s a Hassi Barahal secret,” she said.

“Where are the others?” I asked as we set out.

“Taking down and moving the press,” he said. “That was a spectacular diversion, Cat.”

“My thanks.” My heart was still pounding, and I had barely caught my breath, yet I felt alive as I had not for weeks now. Indeed, I was scarcely thinking of Vai constantly at all.

“Diversions are her specialty,” said Bee with a laugh. “Dearest, I can’t imagine how Andevai could ever imagine you would tolerate being closed within stultifying walls, whatever attentions he might think to assuage you with.”

“Even I would get bored, no matter how good the petting was,” said Rory.

By the time we reached the tavern I had worked up an impressive hunger. The Tavern with Two Doors was made up of two squares of buildings, one for human people and one for feathered people. Each had a central courtyard, linked by a shared wing. This central wing housed the kitchens, one for each courtyard, and other service rooms. Part of the ground floor, beneath the upper floor, lay open as a wide portico. Because it was summer, tables were set here, where rats from one side and trolls from the other could congregate as they wished. We took a table here. Men strolled up, a few to flirt with Bee but most to argue the serious business of radical philosophy. People spoke of rising up against the prince in order to open the city gates to Camjiata’s army.