"What, three silver Skies for a mutton rack?!" My voice cracked sharp as flint striking steel, rising above the subdued din of the Great City Market. The morning air, thick with the scent of damp cobblestones and fish long past its prime, did nothing to calm my irritation.

  The vendor, a weathered brute with arms like gnarled tree limbs, fixed me with a steady, indifferent stare. "Aye," he rumbled, his voice gravelly from years of barking prices. "Supplies are scarcer than a priest's charity these days, Chronicler. But the stomach—ah, the stomach knows no reason nor rest. Mark me," he added with a cynical grin, pointing one heavy finger my way, "in five days’ time, you'll be begging to pay three silver skies."

  I felt the wrinkles deepen upon my brow, mirrored by the aged leather of my purse, a wrinkly, saddeningly light monument to my lessened finances. Turning, I cast a troubled eye across the market square, its emptiness ringing louder than any bell of alarm. The stalls stood vacant, skeletal frames draped in empty canvas, vendors notably absent or casting furtive, uneasy glances over sparse offerings.

  A woman passed close, her basket filled with root vegetables shriveled as though grief had claimed them too. Her head bent low, she shuffled silently like a penitent through a temple of loss. I sighed, the sound carrying the weight of dread that gnawed ever deeper into my bones.

  "Three silver skies," I repeated, my voice softer, nearly swallowed by the heavy stillness. "In truth, my friend, it seems mercy already. Yet I fear mercy itself is soon to be in short supply."

  Transaction noted and done, albeit with a lingering sourness that would surely taint my meat, I turned nose toward home.

  The great bells, swinging in somber unison, shattered my retreat. Their clamor, jarring as a smithy’s hammer upon cold iron, drew my gaze first to the Cathedral of Saint Joseph—its towers stooping beneath the weight of battered faith—and then downward to the square below.

  There, scattered in uncertain knots, were Blemmyes: broad-shouldered, bent figures now draped in donated robes and awkwardly stitched garments, offering sermons and parables to any who would tarry long enough to listen. Their chest-set mouths moved with halting fervor, voices coarse but striving for eloquence.

  Most had not been welcomed into the warmth of bureaucracy, unlike the esteemed John, son of the learned. A Blemmyes with words was still, to many, a Blemmyes first and last. Eloquence could not bleach old fears from the hearts of men.

  City guards loitered nearby, their glares heavy with the weight of loaded muskets. They stared with a force greater than gunpoint, suspicion writ into every knotted brow and finger tensed near a trigger.

  A sign of the times, I thought grimly.

  "The Rise of the Blemmyes." The phrase tumbled unbidden into my mind—an apt title, if ever there was one. Worth pondering, I mused, over a brazed mutton rack... if such luxuries still dared grace a table come next fortnight.

  The sound of bells had seldom abated in these times. One answered another in somber recognition, like a shifting of a guard.

  I wandered. Feet dragging me a bit further from my home quarters, the foggy, overcast drizzle reflecting my mood—or tampering it.

  The ramparts. Hasholm, the fortress island, was only truly defended in one direction: the east. First as a precaution against seven-headed dragons or other fairy-tale creatures one could imagine lurking in the plains ahead. Later, it was against our sour neighbors—the Gustavians. It seemed that man was the greatest danger in the New World as well.

  From the crest of the walls I beheld the old defenses in their lonely splendour: rocky cliffs plunging sheer into pewter water, their ledges studded with squat, triangular ramparts like half?buried arrowheads. Greening cannon, banded in salty verdigris, slumbered on worn carriages—barrels pointed forever outward, as if memory alone kept them vigilant. Below, a single barge worked the slate?coloured tide, casting its net in slow arcs that glittered brief silver before vanishing beneath the swell.

  Closer at hand, two sleepy troopers leaned against a parapet, boots crossed, muskets idle, trading murmured wagers on whether the next supply ship would arrive whole or aflame. A courting couple strolled just beyond, hand in hesitant hand, their laughter a fragile defiance against drizzle and distant thunder. The mingled scents of wet stone, tarred rope, and faint black?powder hung in the mist, reminding me that these walls—like the people clinging to them—were old, cracked, yet stubbornly alive.

  A distant rattle of iron?rimmed wheels against cobble drew my attention from the brooding sea. A hand?pulled cart—closed, lacquered in the drab olive of officialdom—crept along the wall?road. Two liveried servants in damp grey livery flanked it, their shoulders hunched against the drizzle, expressions fixed in the practiced neutrality of civil service. Processions from the Governance Quarter were no rarity; sealed crates, baffling decrees, and fresh stacks of tariffs travelled that path daily.

  Yet this little convoy tilted east at the switchback and angled straight toward my own humble lane—a route rarely favoured by the city’s brass. My pulse pricked with uneasy curiosity.

  I made an awkward jog along the parapet stairs, the brazed mutton thudding in its grease?paper and a lone coin jangling like a mocking bell in my purse. Rain speckled the parchment wrapping, smearing the butcher’s mark into a pink blur.

  What poor soul—or fortunate scoundrel—would this provincial bounty alight upon? I wondered, chest tight with equal parts dread and excitement. Providence seldom visits my doorstep unaccompanied by cost.

  Turning from the parapet street into my own narrow thoroughfare, I saw catastrophe drawing a straight bead upon me. The cart—yes, that officious, olive?lacquered box—had come to an abrupt halt before my very lodging. One footman consulted a folded slip of parchment, lips moving over each line; the other climbed the stoop and rapped my door with the measured certainty of tax collectors.

  “That is my housing they pause before,” I muttered, rain threading down the brim of my hat.

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  “That is my address the servant surveys.”

  Indeed—my door he now assaulted, knuckles drumming a summons that thudded through my ribs. The mutton felt damp in my grasp; the single coin in my purse clinked again like a doomed bell. A reckoning, surely, but from which quarter? Which baron’s ire—or which damsel’s soured favour—now struck?

  Not much remains to smear upon my name; an inkblot can only grow so black. I drew a breath sharp as vinegar, squared my shoulders, and strode downhill toward whatever verdict waited beyond that weather?beaten lintel.

  "You will find that he is not home," I jested to the servant, attempting levity as I closed the distance. The man’s sour visage swiveled toward me—lightness, it appeared, was a gamble lost.

  “Am I to leave him a message then?” came a voice from within the mystery box. A narrow hatch snapped open with the oiled precision of bureaucracy.

  The face that emerged carried the unmistakable weight of import. My pulse faltered. Brenda Hohendal—Master of Domestic Affairs, third member of the City Council—regarded me through the aperture, her painted lips curling into a sly smile that left no doubt my day’s plans were now hers to dictate.

  A reckoning indeed—and one far above my station. I swallowed hard, mutton forgotten, coin useless, and waited for the summons to tighten around my neck.

  I bowed, gestured for Madam Hohendal to disembark, and led her—damp hem, lacquered boots and all—through my warped door. The two servants remained sentinel beside the cart, eyes forward, faces blank as ledger paper.

  Inside, the hearth coughed on a skeleton of embers, more ash than flame. The room smelled faintly of ink and cold stone; fruit there was none, and the only candle burned upon my writing desk, guttering around a puddle of wax like a ship becalmed.

  Brenda took in the neglected larder, the bare shelves, the stack of unpaid notices stuffed behind a pewter mug. One arched brow rose beneath powdered curls.

  “Hard times,” I offered, hanging my damp coat with forced nonchalance. “The price of candor is steeper than the price of candles.”

  “Hmm,” she murmured, gloved fingers brushing a dust?glossed tabletop. Then she produced, with theatrical flourish, a thin folio bound in twine. Another, and another—pamphlets, some yellowed, some crisp: The Muse of the East, Songs of the Native Man, Ballad of Six Wives. She fanned them across my small table like a gambler’s winning hand.

  “They say you praised a folk tale into legend,” she mused, tapping The Muse of the East. “Equaled savage lullabies to culture.”

  I managed a wan smile. “Bold, perhaps. But folk learn faster from a song than a sermon.”

  Her gloved finger slid to Ballad of Six Wives. “The Duchess of Kanton did not much care for that one, did she?”

  “No, madam. Her Grace found the ending… indelicate.”

  Brenda’s eyes glittered. “And yet you kept writing. Histories of the Grenzland People, Tales from the Anomaly Fields, Explorations of the Coast—and several droll lampoons of baronesses and counts. I daresay satire heats your hearth better than reverence.”

  “It pays for heat, madam,” I confessed, poking the embers with a charred stave until one reluctant flame licked upward.

  She leaned in, voice soft but insistent. “Word travels, Master Chronicler. You sniff at doors high and low; you taste rumour like vintage. They say you’re working on… a story of our times.”

  I swallowed, suddenly aware of the chill seeping through the flagstones. “Times write themselves, madam. I merely take dictation.”

  “We—that is, the Council—wish to help shape that dictation.” She placed a final parchment, thick with official ribbon, onto the table. “Write of the rise of Grenzland—of how a border province steadied itself when the world tipped. Chronicle the conquest of hardship, by sword and resolve. A piece that will pay,” she added, tone light but eyes unblinking.

  Her meaning rang clearer than any bell: patronage with a quill?point. I glanced at the meagre hearth, at the lone candle burning low, at the mutton now cooling on the sideboard. Then back at the ribboned parchment—a door, perhaps, to warmth and wider ink.

  Outside, the drizzle strengthened, pattering against the shutters like impatient fingers. Inside, I felt the weight of the city—and its stories—settle upon my narrow, hungry shoulders.

  I cleared my throat, daring a thin smile. “And if I may ask, madam—what else but coin can you offer? I speak to the lowly and the desolate for a reason; the truth rings truer where purses jingle least.”

  Brenda’s reply came swift, smooth as lacquer: “We offer a seat at the table, Allemand—in the room where it happens—where troops are moved and hard choices are made.” She held my gaze, the candlelight catching lacquered lashes.

  “You may keep talking to the rabble, if that feeds your prose,” she added, tapping the ribboned parchment. “But the truth, I assure you, you will find with us.”

  Indeed. A queer weight settled in my breast, and my purse—still light as confession—seemed, for one treacherous moment, to sag with phantom coin.

  I exhaled through my nose, feeling the crackle of a turning page within my own life’s ledger.

  A hush settled after Brenda’s carriage rattled away, the hush of ink settling and embers sighing low. I moved to secure the latch—then paused. From somewhere beneath my floorboards rose a braided murmur, too steady for rats, too solemn for wind: a cadence of consonants carried on slow breaths.

  My rooms crown the third storey; the voices had to come from the flat below—Old Thilde’s place, left vacant since the Blood?Plague took her and frightened every buyer thereafter. Curiosity pried harder than prudence. I snatched the candle from my desk and descended the groaning stair.

  The landing smelled of dust and lye?wash, but a second scent threaded through: warm tallow and crushed sage. Thilde’s door—a warped oak tongue—hung ajar, beckoning with lamplit sliver.

  I nudged it wider.

  Inside knelt three Blemmyes. Ill?fitting robes—charity cloth, hastily slashed to expose the singular eye?pair set low in their chests—draped their massive frames. They were arrayed around a makeshift shrine: a corked wine?jug doubling as candle?holder, a child’s tin whistle, and a folded scrap of blue cloth I could not place. Their broad backs rose and dipped in unison, each exhale a low chord reverberating through the bare rafters—less a prayer than memory set to breath.

  Floorboards creaked under my boot. Three sets of chest?eyes lifted, calm as deep wells.

  “Did you come to listen?” asked the nearest—his voice a river?stone rasp yet gentle, almost hopeful.

  I cleared my throat, lifting the candle until wax haloed us all. Truth rings truer where purses jingle least… Brenda’s offer still echoed, but down here, coin felt thin as onion?skin.

  “We shall see, my friends,” I said, mustering a faint, earnest smile. “Just tell me what you have to say.”