“THE CRAFTSMANSHIP IS MEDIOCRE, the design uninspired and asymmetrical,” complained the Lady Margery d’Oily, casually listing the flaws of the rolled carpet that settled heavily over Arable’s shoulders. “Whoever made it clearly thought its value was proportional to the amount of time she wasted upon it.”

“Then whyever did you purchase it?” asked the Wilford sister.

To break my spine, Arable might have answered.

“For normalcy’s sake, dear.” Lady Margery’s lips gave a smile that her eyes did not share. “The Market Square is a tangible metaphor for the health of the city. We must do what we can to nurse her back.”

Who’s going to nurse my back?

She groaned. Humility struck one of the Guardsmen in their entourage, who offered to take the carpet from Arable’s shoulders in exchange for a silk-lined box of beeswax candles. Arable whispered a thank you to him, and massaged her shoulders as she regained her bearings.

The Market Square indeed seemed sickly to Arable, as it had been for nearly two weeks. Ever since the Nottingham Guard raided the Red Lion Fishmarket, the city streets were practically graveyards. The Guard had clamped down the city like a judicious parent, needing little reason to arrest anyone they saw. Arable had mixed feelings about it all. The Guard was still searching for Jon Bassett, and while she hoped they never found him, the city would suffer until their manhunt was over. Apparently they had yet to identify even a single person linked to Bassett’s disappearance. The anonymity of that was somewhat rewarding—as if the entire world had collectively agreed it was better without him. But by punishing no one, the Guard was punishing everyone. It someway gave legitimacy to Bassett as a human, when his absence should have gone as unrecognized as the swatting of a fly.

In the end, the Guard blankly blamed “the gangs,” which led to this imposing new policing of the streets. Many of those arrested had since been released, and now the Guard was focused on keeping the city safe from retaliation. Even still, the city markets remained desolate. A few older vendors had recently braved the opportunity to return to the Market Square, and Lady Margery had insisted on spending her coin.

Her husband’s coin, actually, as she had been quick to correct. “And I am eager to trade it for anything that will infuriate him.”

Lady Margery had admittedly grown on Arable. Her husband, the Earl of Warwick, had departed Nottingham the previous night without his wife, which Lady Margery found little mercy in mocking. “Serves him right for keeping me in the dark. Always wrapped in ham-handed conspiracy and political scheming. He would have you believe there is an incalculable machination that guides all events, from the assignments of new earls to the schedule of their bowel movements.”

“My goodness, Lady d’Oily,” balked Lady Delaney Oughtibridge. “Whatever must they think of you?”