The market swelled like a wave in the wind. Canvas awnings were hoisted higher; darkened shingles threw back bands of color from the fabrics. Someone thumped a cask; someone else scattered nuts on a tray. It smelled of lard, fresh bread—and happiness. Fiddles played on one side, a flute on the other, and in the middle came the laughter of children holding hands and spinning until their headscarves fell.

  Semaj led the way, slipping softly between people and glancing back now and then to make sure Algar followed. They stopped at a knife stall. Blades of every shape lay on the board, shining like water. The seller’s fingers were crosshatched with tiny cuts.

  “Show me the wider one,” Semaj said.

  The trader smiled with one corner of his mouth and laid the knife on his palm. “Hard steel. Clean cut. Honest price.”

  Algar took it and tested the weight. His hand settled the way it liked to. Then he set it down. His gaze slid to a hook where an axe hung—small, but the head had a fine line to it.

  “That one,” he said.

  The trader passed it over with care. The axe sat right, as if the space in his hand had been made for it. Algar gave it a short, dry swish through the air. Somewhere under his breastbone, his heart steadied. He had never felt quite like this.

  “Pricey,” Semaj murmured.

  “Bad steel is cheaper. This one’s ten coppers,” the trader said, smiling as broadly as a man could.

  “Steel may be decent, but it’s poorly sharpened, and the haft’s got a hairline crack,” the elder brother said, well aware of the game they were playing.

  “Call it eight—I can see the boy’s strong.”

  Algar slid a hand into his pocket. He had five coins there. He’d saved them carefully to spend with Dara. His heart kicked. He looked at his brother.

  “Seven. Daylight robbery,” Semaj said. “You come among honest folk and turn out to be a crook and a cheat.” The tone didn’t match the words.

  “I’ve only got five,” the boy whispered to him.

  “You’ll have seven—just wait a moment.” Semaj leaned close to his ear. “What I had went to bread and lard, but I’ve a few coins under my pillow at home. Run!”

  Algar nearly kissed him, but didn’t. He couldn’t stop the smile. With wings under his feet, he ran flat out, and the whole clamor around him ceased to matter.

  A smell of cheese and herbs rose from the crowd. Dara’s stall stood at the end of the row, draped with green-striped canvas. On the table lay rounds and loaves of cheese in shades from nearly white to deep yellow, and behind it her mother bustled. Dara was slicing a thin piece, as intent as she had been hanging wreaths. When they came up, she looked up.

  “Try,” she said, offering Algar a slice on the knife. Then she noticed the little axe hanging at his belt. Her brow creased. He took the cheese with his fingers. It was springy, smelling of milk and grass. He ate slowly.

  “It’s good.”

  “The cows were calmer this year,” she said, the corner of her mouth flicking. “Maybe Korvain was kind—though you have other ways.” She gave him a conspirator’s smile.

  For a moment they stood close, as if the crowd were only a frame around their silence.

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  “And… don’t do anything foolish,” she added, lower.

  He nodded. He set down the wooden dish and moved on. Behind him, he heard the reeve’s voice, harder than usual—maybe arguing with a trader over space, maybe over price. Algar didn’t turn. People had begun to gather by the pole fence. That was where the games were marked out: a ring of packed earth, a few lads with staves, a judge with a red cord on his sleeve.

  “All right, kid,” Semaj nudged him. “They’re taking volunteers.”

  Algar turned that way. He saw the small ring edged with timber, two villagers trading blows inside.

  “Looks like you’ve got business there,” Semaj said, and the younger brother understood. Roch had stepped into the ring with two cronies—tall, lean, sure of himself. A thatch of red hair, a spray of freckles, a sneer. He twirled his staff lightly; a strip of leather wrapped the tip. He spotted Algar at once.

  “Hey, sickle-boy!” someone shouted from the side.

  “Let’s see how sharp those hands cut,” another called.

  “Get in here. I need to rearrange your face. Maybe then you’ll understand Dara’s mine,” Roch said as he came to the fence and rested the staff on his shoulder. He spoke under his breath.

  “There’ll be trouble,” Dara said, looking at Semaj with a plea.

  “What trouble?” the elder lad said with a frank grin, hands on his hips.

  Algar merely nodded. He handed his axe to his brother. They gave him a staff—smooth, hard, straight. The judge pointed to the center. The ring quieted, as if everyone took a single breath.

  “Three touches wins! Place your bets!” The last thing Algar heard was Semaj’s curse.

  Roch circled slowly, trying to read his movement. Algar stood sideways, staff low, left hand at the butt, right at mid-shaft. In his head the fiddles and children’s laughter were still playing, but beneath the noise something quieter, even—his heartbeat.

  The first touch was a feeler. Roch swung wide, aiming for the thigh. Algar skipped aside and parried, wood ringing. The second came faster, higher, at the shoulder. Parry—step in, jab to the breastbone. The judge raised two fingers.

  “One for the kid!”

  Roch’s mouth twisted. His hands slid along the staff. Heat lit his eyes. He scraped dust with his boot. He drove in with flurries, trying to break the rhythm. Once Algar gave ground; once he came under the staff and jerked in close. A strike to Roch’s side—soft, but clean.

  “Two!”

  The third came quicker. Roch showed high and cut for the ankle. A thin pain nicked the skin above the boot. The ground shifted underfoot. Algar did something he hadn’t expected from himself—a twist of the hips, a turning thrust; the staff swept in an arc and tapped Roch’s shoulder. Not hard, but true. The crowd gave a short howl.

  “Three!”

  The judge raised his hand. Someone clapped; someone whistled. Children hopped closer; the red cord on the judge’s sleeve swung. Roch planted his staff in the dirt.

  “Let’s see you handle a knife,” he spat.

  Algar looked him dead in the eye. Roch turned as if to go, then cracked Algar’s shin with the staff—just to hurt. Semaj was already at the fence.

  “Enough!” the judge called, voice raised. But Algar had already slipped aside and put a fist into Roch hard enough to drop him cold. People muttered, then lifted Roch from the ground. Algar turned and walked away, like a man done with a job.

  “Good work. You’ve got the spirit,” Semaj said, stepping over the rail and offering his brother a hand. “You did what you had to. And you kept your guard at the end—that matters more.”

  “Nothing much.”

  “Enough for the crowd. You’ll make a fighter of yourself once you master the axe.”

  Off to the side, by the cheeses, Dara watched with a hand over her mouth. When their eyes met, she lowered her hand and gave him a thumbs-up. Her smile was brief, but her eyes were grave. She went back to slicing.

  They walked on a bit and stopped at a stall with belts and pouches. In the crowd, someone was telling a loud story about wolves found with their hides split open. Someone else added it wasn’t a bear’s doing. Honey sloshed into mugs, a farmer knocked over a bench, another laughed too loudly. Under it all ran the day’s hum, thick and bright. More than one head was buzzing with beer or wine. Semaj cast a short glance over the distant treetops.

  “This afternoon we’ll walk the boundary. Father will want a look at the fence by the ditch. And watch Roch. He doesn’t like losing.”

  “He should be watching me.”

  The racket rose in his ears again; someone shouted about a new load of malt, the fiddler struck a livelier tune, and people took up the rhythm. The chapel was at their backs now; the fair stamped its prints into the grass. For just a heartbeat, the air grew heavier and the sounds crouched to the ground. Then they moved on, as if nothing had happened.