“The hand is fair enough, but the words! Pertellis, they write down everything you say. On one page of my copy, a paragraph ends with ‘Oh dear, class dismissed, out of the windmill in single file, children.’”

“Indeed, indeed. A printing press removes all such problems, and saves a deal of time and risk. It seems that it has been decided all around that I am running such a press. I can hardly resist such a weight of numbers, so I shall not protest.” The young teacher’s voice rose. “Would I be ashamed to be throwing sparks into the tinder of men’s minds in such a way? No, I would not. Last winter, the overtaxed poor starved so that the Duke could build his Spires of Prosperity. This winter, innocent people will perish on the streets because he has knocked down their houses to make way for more follies. Is it worth speaking out against these things? Yes, it is!”

Copperback made an inarticulate, exasperated sound, and strode back to his table, where he sucked at his pipe so furiously that he swiftly vanished in a cloud of scented smoke. The Laurel Bower was dark and windowless out of respect for the window tax, but the sunlight entered the wooden walls through a hundred knotholes, illuminating ghostly swirling spears amid the blue smoke.

Miss Kitely brought Pertellis his own pipe.

“You are too stubborn,” she said under her breath.

“Have I made an enemy?” he asked quietly.

“No, just too passionate a friend. He is worried that he will live to see you on the gibbet.”

Pertellis sucked slowly at his pipe and then gave his hostess a glance that was alive with concern.

“That customer who just left—have you been troubled by many of the Duke’s spies since my arrest last month?”

“I can scarcely lock my door against them.”

“No, I suppose not. I had not thought that when they failed to prove a charge of sedition against me, they would turn their attention to my friends. I have put them in danger.” Pertellis shifted his weight from one elbow to the other, so that his face was a little turned away from Miss Kitely’s hooded eyes. “I have been thinking that it was time I found myself a real office instead of coming here . . . perhaps one I could share with the Winnowing Brothers . . .”

“I have in store a great many of those little brandy cakes of which you are so fond,” Miss Kitely declared evenly. “They are too bitter for most tastes, and if you stopped coming here I would probably lose the money for them. I would take that hard, Mr. Pertellis.”

Pertellis made a small noise, as if he had drawn in too large a lungful of tobacco.