“Are we talking our feelings now?” Simon’s accent turned it into a threat. “We’ve known each other all this time and I’m only now to find out that you’ve been courting me?”

He smiled, but Guy ignored him. Simon had risen as far as he wanted and was perfectly content to train wet men to swing sticks. Simon had fostered a healthy neutrality to all things political—but he’d understand soon enough.

After speaking with the gaolers and selecting some men from a list based on their crimes alone, Guy and Simon returned topside to the Rabbit Cage. That was the local name for a solitary square iron cage that sat in the center of a small courtyard beside the southern curtain wall. Its lone door was shielded by flat planks, so that it could only be unlocked from the outside. Within its bars, a gullet opened that led back down into the catacombs of the prison. This cage was normally used to sentence prisoners without chancing their escape, but now it offered them exactly that.

Their first candidate climbed up from the Rabbit’s throat, escorted by two stout Guardsmen. Ludic of Westerleak and Marshall Sutton were exactly the sort of men one imagined should be prison guards. They shaved their heads regularly and probably spent their free time moving logs for fun. Their prisoner was dirty and shaken, a sizable man with pitiful eyes.

Guy led. “The Sheriff and the Lord have decided you deserve another chance at life. Unfortunately neither of them is here. So convince us you deserve it.”

“I’m a good man,” the prisoner stammered.

“Is that it?” Guy laughed. “Back down with you.”

“Give him a chance,” Simon growled playfully.

The man swallowed, eyes darting back and forth between Simon and Guy. This prisoner was the thumb-sucking dumb type. His hands were hard and callused, and though he slumped now his back was straight. This was a useful man, physically at least. All of his attention was on Simon, whom he had perhaps correctly identified as the more lenient.

“Do you know my friend?” Guy asked.

A slow, dumb nod. “He’s The Simons.”

Guy had been the one to nickname him The Simons, originally as a joke but it stuck over the years. Now every fledgling grunt that squeezed his way through The Simons’ Yard said it with respect.

“And what do you know about The Simons?”

“The Simons turns you into a man.” His lower lip trembled, and his glance averted.

“And what’s your name?”

“Gerold.”

“Gerold of…”

“Gerold of … nowhere, m’lord.”

“Tell me how you ended up in prison, Gerold of Nowhere. And tell the truth,” Guy added, “or you’re yet to be Gerold of the Gallows.”