It was these introductions, these discussions, that had first brought Ori close to the Runagate Rampant circles. He had bought a copy every fortnight for three months from a fruit-seller in Murkside, and eventually the man had asked him whether he was interested in talking through the issues covered, had directed Ori to these hidden meetings. Ori had been a regular, raising more points and objections, engaging with more enthusiasm-and eventually less-until after one meeting, while they were alone, with affecting trust the convenor had told Ori his real name, Curdin. Ori had responded, though like everyone they still went by Jack to each other within the meetings.

"Yes, yes," Curdin was saying, "I think that’s right, Jack, but the question is why?"

Ori unfolded his Runagate Rampant, read it in snippets. Exhortations for unity in action that he had seen before, angry and illuminating analyses, columns and columns of strikes. Each workplace, each two or three people who had put their tools down, won or lost, a gathering of twenty or a hundred, a half-hour walkout, the disappearance of every guildsmember or suspected unioner. A catalogue of every dispute, murderous or paltry. It bored him.

There were stories missing. Ori’s frustrations with the meet-ings was growing. Nothing was happening here. It was elsewhere, though, fleetingly. As in Fallybeggar’s.

He tapped his Runagate Rampant. "Where’s Toro?" he said. "Toro took another one. I heard it. In Chnum. Him and his crew took out the guards, shot the magister that lived there. Why’s that not in here?"

"Jack… it’s clear what we say about Toro," Curdin said. "We had the column last-but-one issue. We don’t… it ain’t the way we’d do things…"

"I know, Jack, I know. You criticise. Carp at him."

The convenor said nothing.

"Toro’s out there and he’s doing something, yeah? He’s fighting, and he’s not waiting like you keep waiting. And you sit and wait, and tell him he’s getting ahead of himself?"

"It’s not like that. I won’t snip at anyone fighting the magisters, or the militia, or the Mayor, but Toro can’t change things on his own, or with his little crew, Jack…"

"Yeah but he’s changing something."

"Not enough."

"But he’s changing something. "

Ori respected Curdin, had learnt so much from him and his pamphlets, he did not want to alienate him. But the complacency of his convenor had begun to infuriate him. The man was more than twice his age-was he just old? They sat and glowered at each other wordlessly while the others looked back and forth between them.

Afterward Ori apologised for his bad temper. "It’s nothing to me," said Curdin. "Be as rude as you want. But I tell you the truth, Jack"-they were alone and he corrected himself-"I tell you the truth, Ori. I’m worried. Seems to me you’re going down a certain road. All your plays and puppets…" He shook his head and sighed. "I ain’t against it, I swear to you, I heard what happened at Fallybeggar’s and, you know, good on you, on your friends. But shock and shooting ain’t enough. Let me ask you something. Your friends the Flexible Puppeteers-why’d they choose that name?"