Rogue's Home by Hilari Bell Page B

prancing around the edges of the brawl, striking at my supporters with his ridiculous staff, which he’d somehow reacquired.
    I took it from him again and landed a solid blow to his stomach. When he doubled over, I lifted my knee to meet his unmarked face. He fell then, and I was turning in search of a more worthy opponent when I was stunned by a washboard breaking over my head. I went to my knees and stayed there for some seconds, so I missed the deputies’ arrival. But the hands that helped me to my feet and then kept hold belonged to a man whose scarlet cloak bore the crossed swords and town crest that indicate a minion of the law.
    For a moment I was sorry, but looking at the shambles we’d made of the tidy, prosperous street, mayhap ’twas time to stop.
    I was cheered to see that all involved were on their feet, none seriously injured. I put a handkerchief to my bleeding nose and saw the blue-clad dandy who’d started all this talking earnestly to the deputies. With a sinking heart, I noted they didn’t restrain him (though one of them still gripped my arm) but listened with respectful expressions. ’Twas only then that I remembered I was unredeemed, and my heart sank so lowthat not even the discovery of the dandy’s hat, trampled to muddy ruin, could cheer me.
    I was at this man’s mercy, and from what I’d seen, ’twould prove a scant commodity.
    The deputies let me lead Chant over the great bridge to the older part of town, and then down a short, straight street lined with tall stone buildings to the Council Hall. ’Twas six stories high and had once been a fortress, I judged. The banners of the town’s guilds flapped on its walls, their brave display only slightly faded by sun and weather. The sheriff’s office, down several flights of narrow stairs, was near the old dungeons, windowless and lit by several oil lamps even in the day. But a small charcoal brazier in the fireplace warmed the room well enough—even before a dozen men crowded in.
    The dandy had asked the deputies to bring only me, but the potter, a man I took to be the apprentice’s master, and several others had come along, all of them quarreling and gesturing. Pulling my guard with me, I made my way to a corner and stood quietly. My nose had finally stopped bleeding, so I put my kerchief away. I could do nothing about the bloodstains or the mud, and I knew how disreputable I must look—even if no one saw my wrists.
    The sheriff put up with the din for mayhap two minutes before roaring for silence. When he got it, he turned not to the dandy, whose lower lip was quite swollen, but to the potter.
    The potter launched into a detailed account of his broken wares, their quality, their worth, and the necessity that he be instantly compensated for their loss. It took the sheriff a while to work through these mercantile concerns, though when he got round to it, the potter gave a fair description of the events. He’d been watching the dandy, whose name was Thrope, and had seen the whole affray.
    His tale gave me a chance to study the sheriff, a man in late middle age with a neatly cut rim of hair embracing his baldness. His features were blunt and rough, and the arms under his plain shirt were thick with muscle. By this, and the small scars on his face and hands, I judged it likely he’d once been a man-at-arms. Such men are often chosen as deputies and sometimes rise to sheriff—though more often that job is given to someone higher up the social ladder. This man made no pretense of rank or wealth, for his clothes were as rough and serviceable as my own, though a great deal cleaner.
    When the potter finally finished, the sheriff, whosename, coincidentally, was Potter, looked around the crowded room and picked out the principal players.
    â€œMaster Thrope, come forward if you please. And you, Sir.” He gestured for me to come too. “You’re a stranger to Ruesport?”
    I