Bifalt disliked sorcerers for their arrogance. More than that, he loathed sorcery itself. It gave gifted men and women power over ordinary people. They could wreak death from hiding and fear nothing, feel nothing. Their arrogance was the natural consequence of their abilities.

Nevertheless the King needed Magisters: a fact that never failed to gall him. He had no other defense against the enemy’s sorceries.

During the early mornings that he had spent studying his city, the crisp weather of autumn had become an early winter. A chill drizzle fell. It was not cold enough to freeze—not yet—but it promised ice and storms. The dripping of the many eaves formed a damp background to his thoughts. Rainwater made gurgling rivulets in the gutters and sewers. Drops falling from the high roofs of the Fist hit hard enough to sting.

The wet and chill did not bother Bifalt. He liked edged weather. To keep the drizzle out of his eyes, he covered his head with the hood of his rain-cape. That was his only concession to ordinary comfort.

While the first signs of dawn crept over the eastern horizon, he expected either the Land-Captain or General Klamath to join him soon. He was running out of time. Now he wanted to know how they proposed to build the barricades he required.

Even this early, a few people were beginning to emerge from doorways along the street. Some of them merely emptied chamber pots into the sewer and went back inside. Others lingered at their doors enjoying a little soft rain before they faced the day’s work.

In true Bellegerin fashion, this quarter of the Hand was called simply “Women.” More than a decade ago, Land-Captain Erepos had suggested relocating all of the city’s whorehouses to a single district. That way, he had argued, they could be defended more easily. After all, whores were the most vulnerable of the realm’s women, at the mercy of their customers. They deserved the King’s protection as much as anyone. They needed it more. And General Klamath’s army in those days had been a bubbling stew of Bellegerin and Amikan resentment. He could not spare enough men to guard every house of comfort throughout the city.

When Erepos had succeeded at cajoling or coercing the whores to agree, primarily by offering them better accommodations at lower prices, other women soon found that they preferred to live nearby. Too many of them had lost their husbands and brothers, their fathers and sons, to the old wars. They valued the comparative safety of Women. Now the district flourished.