[center][h2][color=D4AF37]Locke[/color][/h2][/center]

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“—and I’ve never seen fabric that color, never in my life, it must have cost a fortune, do you think it cost a fortune? I think it cost a fortune. And the spices! Did you smell the spices? Back at the market? We don’t have anything like that back home—”

[color=D4AF37]“Mm,”[/color] said Locke, which was approximately the seventeenth ‘mm’ he’d offered in the last quarter-hour and would almost certainly not be the last.

She clung to him like a barnacle. Her name was Vella. Or Venna. Something with a V. He’d called her ‘darling’ and ‘dearest’ and ‘my heart’ often enough that the actual name had become a technicality, a vestigial limb of a courtship that had gone precisely according to plan and was now, somehow, gnawing his leg off at the knee.

“—we’re too far back, Thomas, I can barely see anything. Let’s get closer to the stage, please? I want to see everything—”

She was on her feet, pulling at his arm. He let himself be pulled. That was the game.

[color=D4AF37]“Whatever you like, darling.”[/color]

[i]Darling.[/i] Gods, he was going to choke on the endearments before this day was done.
They left the tavern table behind and pressed into the crowd. A great seething mass of humanity engaged in the noble pursuit of watching someone else become important. She drank it all in, pointing at all the marvels that Barkrend had apparently failed to provide. Locke nodded along and wondered if his face might simply crack from smiling.

A lopsided carriage caught his eye. It leaned hard to one side, and when the door swung open, he understood why.

What emerged was more mountain than man. Black leather, red trim, a beaked mask with lenses dark as a moneylender’s heart. It stood half again as tall as anyone nearby, and the twin battleaxes across its shoulders were not ceremonial. They were tools. Well-used ones.

Something cold slithered through Locke’s gut. Not fear, exactly. A feeling. The kind that had kept him alive when smarter men had gotten themselves killed. [i]Leave. Leave now.[/i]

The grip pulled him onward. He didn’t look back.

“Thomas, look!” Vella—Venna—whoever—pointed toward the stands near the coronation stage. A man in plate armor, white cloak billowing, flanked by two Venators in pale gold. At the moment, he also had a street urchin dangling from his gauntlet by one skinny wrist, caught in the act of reaching for somewhere profitable.

The kid kicked. Struggled. Accomplished nothing.

The man reached for his belt.

[i][color=D4AF37]And here we go,[/color][/i] Locke thought. [i][color=D4AF37]Lose the hand or lose the head.[/color][/i]

But the hand bypassed the sword entirely.

It came up with coins. Silver. Two of them, pressed into the struggling boy’s palm. Words were exchanged, too distant to hear, but Locke could read the shape of mercy in the man’s posture. He let go. The boy looked down at the coins, then vanished into the crowd.

“Oh!” exclaimed the girl whose name started with V, loud enough, no doubt, for the man in armor to hear. “Did you see that, Thomas? How kind! A true knight, just like in the stories!”
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