Raf cast a glance upwards and smiled. “This kinda snow’s good,” he opined. “Gets people playful, belike. Gets ’em thinkin’ ’bout fun, an’ not ’bout keepin’ an eye out. Na, snow wit’ a nasty wind, tha’s diff’rent. Or colder, tha’s diff’rent, too. This’s near-perfek. Perfek ’ud be sun, right arter this kinda snow.” He scratched his head speculatively. “This weather ’olds, reckon there’ll be drink stalls an ’ot food stalls down t’river, too, an’ aside summa th’ ponds i’ fancy parks. People’ll be skatin’, makin’ snow stachoos an’ forts, ’avin’ snowball fights.”

“Kids?” Skif asked. “Littles?”

Raf laughed. “Na, growed people, too! Graybeards, even! I seed ’em!”

Skif could only shake his head at the notion of full-grown adults having the leisure to pursue snow sports.

They heard the Fair long before they saw it, a jangle of instruments, laughter, loud voices, echoing down the narrow street. And when they saw it, it was just a patch of color at the end of the street. Only as they approached it did the patch resolve into people, waving banners, and a couple of tents bedecked with painted signs on canvas.

Obviously, there was far more to it than that to account for all the noise, but that was all they could see at the end of the street.

This was usually the cattle market, where larger livestock was bought and sold once every fortnight. Part of the market—the part where really fine horses and stud bulls and prize milch cows were sold—was actually underneath a building on ten tall stone pillars. It was like a fine house where the ground floor had been reserved for stalls for beasts. Skif didn’t know what went on in the building atop those pillars, but it was probably some sort of commerce. The rest of the place was just an open square, which on market days had rough wooden pens set up for the more plebeian stock; sheep, goats, donkeys, mules, and those cattle and horses without aristocratic lineage.

As they came to the end of the street, the Fair filled that square and even edged onto the walkways around the perimeter. And the first thing that met Skif’s astonished eyes was a woman, in a flounced dress so short he could see her legs up to the thigh, balancing along a rope strung from the eaves of a shop to the staircase of the stone cattle stalls.

“Na, young’un,” Raf said in his ear. “Iff’n ye kin do that, ye kin call yersel’ a roof walker, eh?”