He paused to step back and examine me more carefully, nodding to himself as though greatly impressed. “They become you. I must say, you’ve a fine figure. A handsome face too, save perhaps for a bit too much pallor, which our hot northern weather will soon make right. Anyway, they become you and look to wear well. If you’re asked where you had them, you might say Saltus Fair. Such talk does no harm.”

I promised I would, though I was far more concerned about the safety of Terminus Est, which I had left hidden in our room at the inn, than about my own appearance or the durability of the lay clothes I had bought from a slopman. “You and your assistant have come to see us draw out the miscreant, I suppose? We’ll be at him as soon as Mesmin and Sebald bring the post. A battering ram is what we called it when we passed the word of what was intended, but I’m afraid the truth is that it’s nothing more than a tree trunk, and not a big one either — otherwise the village would have had to free too many men to handle it. Yet it should do the work. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of the case we had here eighteen years gone?”

Jonas and I shook our heads.

The alcalde threw out his chest, as politicians do whenever they see an opportunity to speak for more than a couple of sentences. “I recall it well enough, though I wasn’t more than a stripling. A woman. I’ve forgotten her name, but we called her Mother Pyrexia. The stones were put up on her, just like what you see here, for it’s largely the same ones doing it, and they did it in the same way. But it was the other end of summer, just at apple-picking time, and that I recall very well because of the people drinking new cider in the crowd, and myself with a fresh apple to eat while I watched.”

“Next year when the corn was up, someone wanted to buy the house. Property becomes the property of the town, you know. That’s how we finance the work, the ones that do it take what they can find for their share, and the town takes the house and ground.”