[Belin]

The player Wingesith counted out the coins they’d gained, with only an occasional glance at his partner Fremman, who had been genuinely drunk and who still couldn’t be trusted with such a task. Not that he ever allowed him to handle the money in any case; the man had no thought of the future when he might need coin for something other than drink, or when he might need a partner for something other than stealing from. The man who was king on the streetcorner was subordinate to his counselor in the rest of the world, just as Wingesith supposed real kings often were, although he doubted that any king in Rohan had ever been as irksome as his current companion, who was currently elbowing Wingesith in an effort to get him to laugh at some joke comprehensible only to his own alcohol-sharpened mind. His eyes, of course, were fixed on the money. A noble king indeed.

But Fremman was the darling of the crowds, and regularly brought in more money than Wingesith had ever been able to garner on his best days, if only one could manage to keep it away from him. With a slight sigh, Wingesith looked out at the way the crowd had reformed since the end of their performance. His eye caught a few young thieves plying their trade, one well suited to the young and agile, who could ward off starvation without being saddled with such a partner. He smiled slightly, imagining a man with his own tall and imposing build attempting to sneak through the crowd the way these children could, standing close enough to pick someone’s pocket unnoticed. It was a far more comical idea, somehow, than that of picking up a thief and setting him to play counselors. After all, that was Wingesith’s own story. He sighed.

“Cabbage,” remarked Fremman.

“What?”

“Cabbage, I said.” He nodded decisively, as if the comment were self-explanatory. Wingesith stared at him. With an exasperated sigh at the stupidity of his colleague, he elaborated in a slow, patient voice, as if he were talking to a child who was still learning to speak. “We need cabbage. For the act. Cab-bage Ki-ngs.” He nodded again, pleased with himself.

“Of course!” said Wingesith brightly. It was an odd idea, and he still wasn’t certain exactly what Fremman had meant by it, but he had learned that the man’s bizarre ideas were as profitable as his drunkenness, and there was no point in letting him think he came up with everything himself. “That’s it exactly. How clever you are,” he added in a voice that was just condescending enough to let him know he would have come up with the same idea in another five minutes, or five minutes ago had he not been contemplating something deep and unspecified. Fremman, disconcertingly enough, chuckled, nodded sagely, and contemplated Wingesith with a careful and surprisingly clear eye.

“Am I then?” he asked softly.

“Er… yes,” answered his companion lamely. “Why don’t… here, the vegetable stands are this way.”

The excitement in the city center was of a different style than the usual, noticed Wingesith, both tense and cheerful, and not businesslike in the slightest. Something new was here. He frowned. Here was a dumb show, one he’d never seen in the city before. He stood still on the edges of their crowd and watched carefully. He didn’t know them, unless the one with the ridiculous mustache turned out to be old Ellorthain, but their performance was astonishingly expert. One of the strengths upon which Wingesith prided himself was knowing both uncertainty and cheating when he saw them, and here he saw neither. He looked over the crowd quickly, trying to calculate whether it was larger than their own. Would cabbages be enough to keep people interested in them?

“Fremman,” he said, “what do you want to do with the cabbages?”

But he got no answer. Fremman had wandered toward the stalls by himself, and was looking at onions over the shoulder of a woman who had not yet noticed his presence.