Even as Rae worked to help Mop and Nessa display their wares—laying out the fleece and cheeses on the table—she could not stop gaping. Not far from where they were unpacking, a small crowd had gathered, the people all looking at a wall. Squares had been tacked all over it, and the squares themselves—Rae squinted—were marred with dark scratchings. She tugged on Mop’s arm. “What are they looking at?”

Mop glanced around. “Ah, that’s just where notices are left.” Seeing Rae’s puzzled expression, he pointed at the squares. “Those are notices. The marks on them are words.… You have to know how to see those scratchings. Not many know how… some can make out a word or two. I never learned myself, though someone once showed me how to make a mountain that was supposed to look like the sound Mmm. Like Mop.”

Rae wondered at this. How would one make the sound Rae? What would it look like? She stared at the scratchings, trying to imagine it. “Are all the marks names?”

“A few. There’ll be some lists about who has married whom and who has died. But most”—Mop flapped his hand dismissively—“just say things like, The crown has collected thirty-five coins from this village, or, The crown had declared a festival to celebrate this or that thing, or, Such and such a person was arrested for such and such crime. See?” Mop pointed to one of the squares. “That one? The one in the middle with the great red wax mark? That has the seal of the king.”

As Mop turned back to his work, Rae continued staring. A woman carrying an armful of linen, a man wheeling a barrow of melons, a couple bickering over the price of a jug of wine. They’d walk up, glance over the notices, walk away. One or two, the ones who spent longer looking, on turning and seeing Rae, would pause. Their eyes would grow wide. They would look from the wall to Rae, from Rae to Mop and Nessa. Some would nudge one another and point.

Rae flushed. She liked looking at the people, but she did not like the way they were looking at her. Turning away, she sat on the ground behind their table, out of sight of the crowds. To keep herself busy, she pulled one of the sheep close and worked to clean the mud and burrs that had caked over its wool on the journey.

She kept herself small and quiet as Mop and Nessa tended to their early customers—

Yes, two coins for that. Three for this.

Yes, the wool is washed.

A full wheel or a half?

—but when one of the customers leaned a great round shiny head and a great wide shiny grin over their table, Rae was startled and ducked behind the sheep.

“Mop!” cried the round head over the wheels of cheese.

“Myntas!” Mop leapt to embrace the rotund figure. He thumped the other man’s back.

“Ness!” The round man exclaimed, seeing Nessa over Mop’s shoulder. “You here, too!” He came behind the booth to wrap Nessa in his bearlike arms. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen you! I warned you… if you went off to the wilderness with Mop, we’d never see you again.…”