Amidst the elm trees planted within the cobblestone square, a small crowd of peasants had gathered within one of the lower plazas of Skyhaven. A hundred of them - a great many children - jeered and laughed in contempt of the ten locked in heavy, wooden stocks under the watch of two Royal Guards who watched the proceedings with apathetic amusement. Stooped down beneath them in worn stocks strategically positioned in the sun so as to ensure proper sunburning throughout the day, the ten prisoners took their punishment with a dejected acceptance. Dressed in ragged prison clothes, with mussed hair and untrimmed facial hair, they were subjected to all manner of humiliation by any passerby who wished to shame them and would continue to do so until sundown that day.

Beneath their clamped necks hung crude chalkboards tethered to chains, upon which the prisoner's crime was written for all to see. Their crimes, while covering a broad range of unacceptable activities, were all fairly minor. Three chalkboards read "DEBTOR", another had "DISAGREEABLE ODOR" scrawled in capital letters for the passersby to see. One particularly-unfortunate soul had "DONKEY-BUGGERER" hanging beneath his name. And although most of the peasants gathered at the stocks could not read the signs, they knew that they had committed some offense against society and that some mild catharsis against them would do everyone some good.

To this end, the peasant children had brought with them copious amounts of rotten and inedible produce. Mushy cabbages sailed through the air and splattered against the faces of the condemned or the stocks they were affixed to, showering them in soggy fronds and maggots. The man accused of fornicating with a donkey received the lion's share of the abuse, who was now drenched with the pulp of spoiled tomatoes, but not far behind him in terms of degradation was a younger, more handsome man with a gaunt, chiseled face; the chalkboard beneath his face read "HABITUAL THIEF". He had made some attempt to slick back his oily hair, now embedded with several chunks of rotten turnip. A serf girl not too much younger than he stepped gingerly over the layer of vegetable matter over the cobblestones and approached him and smiled.

"Why hello, miss..." The thief crooned. The girl responded in kind by stuffing a molding carrot up his left nostril and then skipped back to her peers, blushing profusely.

As produce continued to rain down upon the condemned, a dark, cloaked figure approached the stocks. The guards seemed somewhat more alert as the hooded stranger approached the thief's stocks. With a speckled, wrinkled hand, he read the crime upon his chalkboard silently to himself.

"Come to stuff another carrot in my nose?" The thief asked with a nasally wheeze.

The man in the dark, gray cloak turned to the guards instead, ignoring the turnips splattering against his feet. "What cost to free this man?"

The Royal Guards looked to one another, seemingly perplexed by the offer. "Five dawns should suffice." One offered at last, his companion nodding in accord.

Without further comment, the hooded stranger deposited five copper coins into the guard's palm. With a shrug the same guard stowed the coins in a pouch at his side and produced a key from his belt. With a metallic click, the key popped the wooden yoke open, freeing the thief.

"Go on, thief. Don't do it again; you won't be as fortunate next time." The guard growled.

With the prisoner free the cloaked figure stepped away from the stocks. The man he had freed followed hot on his heels, massaging his wrists as he went.

"Now, who do I have to thank for such generosity?" The thief asked after plucking out the carrot lodged within his nostril.

"Your employer." The hooded figure answered curtly, stopping under the shade of an elm, well out of earshot of the roaring peasant crowd.

"My employer?" The thief pressed a finger against his nose and blew a wad of mucus and residual carrot-mold from his nostril. He wiped his hand against an unsullied portion of his trousers. "What an honor that is - you will be my first. My name is Ernest. Ernest Gilwerth. And it is my most sincere pleasure to make your acquaintance, my only and dearest employer." The thief presented his hand to the cloaked man to shake. The cloaked man showed no interest in returning the gesture.

"So I see that you are a thief." The hooded figure asked, all business. "But are you a [i]good[/i] thief?"

"It is hardly fashionable to boast of such skills," said a smiling Ernest, combing his hand through his hair and brushing out bits of turnip, "but between an employer and his employee, I am a talented pilferer of pockets."

"For a good thief, you seem to be caught rather frequently."

"For every time I have been found out, there are two dozen times I have not."

"Fair enough. Then I have work for you."

"What sort of compensation am I to expect, my dear employer."

"Handsome compensation." The cloaked man nodded across the skyline to one of Skyhaven's towering spires. "We shall discuss the details at the tavern. Wash yourself and meet me there a candlemark after dusk."