“I’m a God’s man,” Glasin Grocer said. “I didn’t scream, and the pain was taken from me, it was. They carried me to the city and the singers gave me my song. Best crop ever, that year.”

  “I heard about that year. They said the Hound took an angel.”

  Glasin laughed and slapped his thigh. “An angel! I never!” Whenever Glasin laughed, his breath took the odor of his rotting teeth in foul gusts to Orem’s nose, and Orem would have turned away but for the failure of respect. And Glasin was worth it now—only one bite from the Holy Hound, and a good crop, too. “You were the Corthy price,” Orem said, shaking his head.

  Glasin punched Orem in the shoulder. “An angel. They don’t.”

  “Oh, they do,” said Orem, and Glasin sang his song again. He sang it many times on the way down the river, the two weeks as Banning turned into Burring, and they passed the great castles of Runs, Gronskeep, Holy Bend, Sturks, and Pry. There were times, in fact, that Orem wished devoutly that he and Glasin had not become friends, for the silence was preferable to the endless repetitions of the same tales. Glasin had had a small enough life, after all, to be contained in only a few nights’ talk, and Orem had to force himself not to say, “But your whole song is because by chance the Holy Hound found you, and you were clean. Being clean is just a list of the things you’ve never done.” An empty sort of life, after all; and Orem thought, I will have a poem so long and fine that I will never have to sing it myself, but others will sing it to me because they know the words by heart.

  And then one morning Glasin began to talk even as he poled the raft back out into the current. “These woods is the Ainn Woods, and there, up there, you see that low hill, that’s Ainn Point, and the creek just beyond.” Other rafts and even boats had begun crowding the river the past week—Orem saw and heard the same excitement rising on the other rivercraft. “Clake Bay!” cried a woman. And then they rounded a bend and there was Hart’s Hope itself, a high stone wall bright with banners, and below it the docks of Farmer’s Port, and rising high behind it the great walls of King’s Town—no, Queens Town—and the gaunt Old Castle highest of all. Glasin named all the places until he nearly missed his turning and only made one of the last slips of Fanner’s Port.

  They tied to a post at the slip, and Orem was all for jumping ashore, but Glasin glared at him and ordered him to stay. They waited, and soon several men in gaudy clothes came to eye them and their raft.

  “A weaky ship,” said one.

  Glasin turned away from that man and faced another. “All oak,” he said.

  “Bound with spit and catgut?” the man retorted.

  “Good only for lumber,” said a third. “And three days’ drying to boot A cart in trade.”

  “Cart and twenty coppers,” said another.

  Glasin snorted and turned his back.

  “Cart and donkey,” said the man who had called the ship weaky.

  Glasin turned around with a smile. “That and two silvers gives you raft and tent.”

  “What do I want with a tent?”

  Glasin shrugged.

  Another man nodded. The third turned away, shaking his head. The first man, who had the eye of a hawk, staring open always even when the other closed, raised his hands. “God sends thieves downriver in grocers’ clothes,” he said. “Two silvers, a donkey and cart, and you keeps the tent.”

  Glasin glanced at the other bidder, but he was through.

  Hawkeye looked at Orem. “Boy for sale?” he asked.

  For sale? Orem was appalled—how could anyone take him for a slave? He had no ring in his nose, had he? But there was the man asking, and the grocer not saying no, but standing, thinking.

  “I’m a freeman,” Orem said hotly, but Hawkeye made no sign of having heard, just kept watching Glasin. Glasin at last shook his head. “I’m a God’s man, and this boy is free.”

  The buyer said nothing more, just tossed two gleaming coins to Glasin, who caught them deftly so they didn’t slip down between the logs to get lost in the river. The buyer waved, and four men came up, one leading a sad-looking donkey and cart while the others quickly unloaded the raft and put all that would fit into the cart, piling the rest on the dock.

  Orem mounted the dock and stood near the pile of the grocer’s goods. Not that the grocer had anything more to do with him. Orem simply did not know where he should go next. The wide space fronting the river was crowded with carts and men and some women, shouting and cursing; other rafts were being unloaded at other slips, and Orem had only been ashore a few moments when the buyer’s men had the raft unloaded, including the tent, and already were poling it farther downriver.

  “They takes it to Boat Island,” the grocer said in his ear. “They trims it into boards and builds sea ships with it. From Boat Island on out to the sea, the big ships comes and goes. Half my profits is from the raft. Now, boy, you stay here and watch my things, don’t let any be taken, and when I come back with my stall, you get five coppers. Fair enough?”

  Orem nodded, and the grocer immediately took off with his cart loaded high with carrots and onions, peas and apples.

  Around him Orem watched the other grocers as they sized each other up and began trades. Most came alone, and so the trip to the markets to get a stall was a risk, for none had a cart to hold more than half their goods, and some had only their backs for porting. They would pick a man they thought they could trust and leave their piles side by side, the one going to pick two stalls and hire them, the other waiting on guard. The system seemed to work well enough, except once, when the grocer left on guard accepted a bag of coin from a buyer and turned his back as four workmen quickly loaded all the goods from both piles into a wagon and took off. It was done in only three minutes or so, and then there was no sign that piles had been there, and another craft was already pulling into the slip, and the grocer who had stolen the other mans goods took off running toward Swine Gate, with the other men at the dock spitting and throwing vegetables at him.

  Such a thing would never have happened in Banningside, and it made Orem a little afraid. Hart’s Hope was a big place, and the stink of the stockyards and pens and stables was strong, and men did dishonesty right in the open. And why not? There were fifty thousand people in Hart’s Hope or near it, or so said the travelers who came to Banningside. A thief could hide among these crowds and who would hope to find him?

  Yet the feeling of danger only made Orem more intrigued, more eager to get inside the walls.

  It was well past noon when Glasin returned, smiling broadly. “Got a place in the Great Market,” he said, “and I don’t have to give the pick to anybody.” Then Orem understood that the man who waited on guard got to choose which stall he’d get inside; by hiring Orem to do his waiting, Glasin hadn’t had to give up the choice. The five coppers were counted into his hand ungrudgingly. Orem guessed that Glasin would have been willing to pay more, if Orem had known enough to bargain. Well, Glasin had given him free passage, and that was worth much, even if he had worked and provided company and shared good beef from his father’s farm.

  “Piss Gate,” the grocer said. “And don’t buy anything outside the gate. Don’t buy anything from anyone who offers to sell. They’ll spot you as a farmer from the first second, and they’ll up their price by tens.” It was all the wisdom Orem was likely to get, and because the grocer didn’t ask, Orem didn’t help him load the cart for the second trip into the city. Instead, he plunged into the crowd, and after a dozen dozens of jostles and bumps he came out where the carts and wagons and porters waited in four lines to pass the Guard at Swine Gate.

  The Guard wore mail shirts that came well down the thigh, and their weapons were in plain sight and looked brutally efficient, as did the faces of the men who wore them. There were archers on the towers that flanked the gate, and it was plain to Orem that sneaking through was out of the question. There was no place that wasn’t watched.

  “No use looking, farmer,” said a voice behind him.

  Orem turned and saw a weaselly-looking man near four inches shorter than he, smiling at him.

  “I’m not a farmer,” Orem said. It was the truth—he was determined never to farm again.

  “Then you’ll not get through Swine Gate, will you?” asked Weasel.

  “I’m looking for Piss Gate.”

  The man nodded. “They all are, boy, they all are. Well, when you’re done with Piss Gate, you find old Braisy here, and he’ll get you through. He’ll get you into Hart’s Hope for a very small fee of five coppers and a favor, he will.” And then Braisy was gone; because he was not tall, he quickly disappeared in the sea of heads moving in every direction on Butcher Street.

  It took few enough questions for Orem to find that Shit Street, which ran between the stockyards, would lead him north to Piss Town, and he could find the gate from the towers. Of course he got lost—Shit Street quickly became narrow and kept turning away from the main path of traffic. But he spotted two towers, a sure sign of a gate, and headed for it.

  There was no gate. Instead, rambling tall houses lined a narrow street that dead-ended near where the gate should be. There were no soldiers on the towers, and if there was a gate it was permanently shut, for the houses leaned on the stone arch as firmly as they leaned on the stone walls.

  A few guards lounged in the narrow street nearest the towers. Otherwise the street was deserted, the windows shuttered, the place as empty as market at midnight.

  “Ho, boy!” said a guard. “Ho, what do you want here?”

  “Trying to pass the Hole in daylight?” asked another.

  Orem didn’t know what to say; this was obviously not Piss Gate, and he had no business here. From what Glasin had said, Orem didn’t expect guards at the Hole.

  “I’m looking for Piss Gate,” Orem said, and then decided to play farmer after all. “I’m here for the first time. I’m lost.”

  “Where you from?” asked a guard, as they surrounded him.

  “A farm. My father’s farm. Upriver, near Banningside.”

  The guards glanced at each other. “An illegal person is near Banningside,” one said to him.

  Illegal person—it could only be the King. How should he answer? He knew nothing of the politics of Hart’s Hope, or what could or could not be said.

  “I left weeks and weeks ago. I’ve been working my way downriver.”

  The guard with white in his hair studied his face. “He’s just a country fool,” he said. “A spy’d know better than to try the Hole in day-light.”

  “I say question him,” said another guard.

  “I say eat shit,” said the white-haired guard. “Get on, boy. Follow the north road closest the wall always. It’ll take you to Piss Gate. Or better yet, go home. There’s nothing in Hart’s Hope for you.”

  Orem nodded, trying to look as stupid as possible, and took off up the road. He stumbled once and tried to pretend to himself that it had been part of his act.

  Behind him, a guard was saying, “Why’d you let him off?”

  “No need to pick on children,” came the answer, and then Orem was lost again in the maze of streets.

  The houses in Beggarstown—the settlement outside the west walls—were all wood, crowded together and extending out over the street farther with every story. Between tall houses were shanties; where a gate opened into a courtyard, filth raised the ground level by several feet, and often there was a building snugly fitted inside the courtyard, so that no inch of ground that could hold a house went empty. The farther he got from the Hole, the more crowded the streets, but not with the grocers and butchers of Farmer’s Port. These people wore elegant clothes, but all faded and worn; and many were wearing only rags of absurdly fine satins and silks. No one was curious. No one looked at him. There was only a dullness in the eyes, as if something in Beggarstown took the mind out of the head, and they went through their daily chores without being conscious of them at all. It was an ugly place, and Orem quickened his pace until he fairly ran through the streets, hunting for Piss Gate.

  And then there it was, its twin stone towers looming over some of the poorest and nastiest neighborhoods Orem had yet seen. Smaller towers had been set between the stone ones, so that the gate itself was only a few feet wide, and the gates were guarded by a heavy troop, including six men ahorse. As with Swine Gate, there was a line, only this one was a sad one of miserable-looking people, dressed badly, or coarsely from the farm. Like Orem. And while he could not find this group of people attractive, he recognized that this was where he belonged. His people from the farms, though he doubted they were from as far north as Banningside. He took his place at the end of the line, which moved steadily forward. Quickly there were more people behind him. No one spoke; there seemed to be an awareness that the line contained no friends. All would be competing for the same jobs, the same chance to get a workingmans pass so they could stay inside Hart’s Hope when the three days were up.

  As they got close to the gate, the man in front of Orem turned to him and whispered, “First time?”

  The man did not look friendly, but at least he had spoken. “Yes,” Orem answered.

  “Well, take a word. Accept no jobs from the men just inside the gate.”

  “I want a job,” Orem answered.

  The man’s mouth twisted. “They promise to take you for a year, but in three days they turn you over to the Guard without your permanent pass. How’s that? And they don’t pay you, either. They just get three days’ work out of you for free and turn you out. The real jobs are farther in.”

  “Where?” Orem asked.

  “If I knew, would I be in this line again?”

  And they were at the guards. The man in front sullenly answered the questions: Name? Business? Citizenship? Rainer Carpenter, carpenter looking for work, citizen of Cresting. The guard took the man by the chin and turned his face, so he could see his cheek. For the first time Orem noticed the three thin vertical scars on the man’s cheek. Two were old and white, but one was still faintly red.

  The guard noticed it, too. “Still red, Rainer, dammit, are you blind?”

  “Got no mirror,” Rainer answered.

  “And a carpenter, no less. Sure you are. Get out and come back when the waiting’s done.”

  And now Orem was at the front of the line.

  “Name?”

  “Orem.”

  The guard waited, then said impatiently, “Your whole name?”

  Orem was puzzled. “That’s it. Just Orem.”

  The guard was amused and looked the boy up and down. “Orem Scanthips,” he said, and now Orem could see a clerk just inside the gate writing down the name on a small paper. “Business?”

  “Looking for work,” Orem said.

  “What kind of work?” The guard was getting impatient.

  “Any kind, I guess.”

  “Unskilled,” the guard said, and the clerk wrote it. “Citizenship?”

  “I’m from a farm near Banningside.”

  “Banningside.” And then, suddenly, another guard inside the gate had him by the arm, and then seized his chin and held it while, with a very sharp knife, he made a quick cut vertically on Orem’s right cheek. It bled profusely, staining Orem’s tunic, but it hurt very little.

  “Mind you,” said the guard, “we know from experience when this wound is healed enough that you ought to be back outside. Any guard who sees this scar will have your pass, and if you’re overstayed he’ll have your ear, too. Understand? Get caught twice, and it’s your balls. You have three days. Sundown, clear? And stay off the King’s Road. Go on.” The clerk stuffed the pass into his hands; another guard was halfway through the same speech with another man whose cheek was also bleeding.

  As soon as Orem was five steps inside the gate, there were five or six men around him, shouting about employment, sign your papers, a year’s stay for sure, guaranteed, twenty coppers a day starting pay. It sounded good. Orem followed the advice of Rainer, however, and passed them by. They cursed him when he ignored them; the man behind him took the job offer, and Orem wondered if he had been lied to before.

  It was a miserable three days. He tried the Markets, first, but all the stalls were filled with grocers who had no power to hire and give workingman’s passes. Worse, Glasin refused to recognize Orem—the friendship had ended at the dock.

  The taverns had all the staff they needed and didn’t like hiring pissers; up Shop Street he was viewed with suspicion, and the shopkeepers shook their heads without speaking when he asked about work. By the third day, discouraged, he followed the advice of many and dodged across King’s Road, the only stone-paved road in the city, to see about work in the guilds. A stableman at the arena looked him over and asked if he knew horses. “As well as I know my own self,” Orem answered eagerly, but the stableman thought for a moment and looked him over and said, “Sorry, no. Need to start someone younger than you. Can’t take ’em over sixteen.”

  “But I’m only fifteen,” Orem said.

  “Sure, they all get younger when I tell ’em that,” said the stableman, and Orem went away angry because he had been telling the truth. Down in the Exchange the rich men in heavy brocades and furs eyed him suspiciously and wouldn’t speak to him, and so the day passed and it neared sundown and the stableman was the best chance he had had. Orem even went back to try again, but a different man was on duty, and he turned Orem away brusquely, saying, “Only the morning man hires, boy, get away, isn’t your scar near ripe?”

  It was ripe indeed, and a guard stopped him just after he had dodged back across King’s Road. For a moment Orem was afraid he was being arrested for having stepped on the road the pissers were forbidden to use, but the guard only checked his pass. “You have an hour,” he said. “Better get moving.”

  Orem got moving, and found a line as long as the one that had led him into the city waiting to take him out. The guards kept this line moving faster, however. It was just a matter of looking at the face, looking at the pass, and checking off the name on the clerk’s list as the pass went into the fire.