Seventhill wasn't within the walls of the city, so we first had to get through East Gate, which was actually quite easy, since the guards didn't see the need to stop most people walking through, especially a well dressed boy with a maid.

The road inside the gate was quite broad and the houses around seemed clean. We weren't in Lookout, the eastern of the two upper class districts near the royal palace, but you could see that we were not that far off.

Instead of walking north into Lookout though, Simila brought me into lower town.

I was impressed with some of the places we passed. Most of the places on the main street were three or four story townhouses, stuck together in a row. they were white and brown, sometimes with awnings or porches in front of the main floors to welcome in customers to whatever business they ran.

Many of them put displays outside, either dresses on stands or shelves with plates or knives. There were others that were more closed, with a wooden door hiding a lawyer or doctor's housing inside.

We passed more than one cobbler before Simila did actually bring me inside one.

Even though I didn't really need new shoes, it would be odd if I didn't have something to shoe when I returned.

It was a fancy shop, one that had a window of glass. The inside was not large, but it had a number of shoes laid out on the shelves. The older man who came out of the door in the back didn't wear a leather apron, but rather a coat, if just a plain brown one, without the silver ornamental lines like mine.

He helped us find a pair of leather shoes that were already made and fit decently. We were in a hurry, so we didn't ask to fit them anymore.

We kept heading down towards the south, the road gently sloping away from the palace at the top of the city.

There was one inn in particular that caught my eye, the windows looked bright and there was a man on horseback leading his horse around the back while a cheerful music came out the open door. There was more than one voice mixed into the tune. There was a sign out the front swinging back and forth with the image of a singing chef and the words Lard and Bard Inn.

When we turned off the main road that led to the gate, we walked into a maze of alleyways so narrow they seemed to choke off the sunlight. The houses that already seemed bunched together in lower town began to overlap in strange ways, no longer individual townhouses but apartment-sized boxes of wood piled on top of each other to fill any remaining space.

And where there weren't houses, there were clothes lines, crisscrossing the gap above.

It was a miracle this part of the city was still standing. I could imagine all too well what would happen if a fire broke out.

I tried not to stare at the people.

There were men with teeth as yellow as their sweat stained tops playing with dice or spitting on the ground as we passed. They all seemed to be chewing something, a rolled leaf that I saw a teenage girl trying to sell from a wooden bowl.

But she wasn't the only girl there. Some of the other ones were chewing whatever it was too. They had loose tops and sly smirks.

"Hi boy," one of them stood up from a chair in the alley and spoke, "Don't you want to try this putting your hand on me instead of that ugly maid?"

I was transfixed as she unbuttoned the top of her cleavage, revealing a valley and curves. Transfixed in horror that is. How could a girl just a few years older than Pricel with pretty eyes and proportions have yellowed and rotting teeth?

Simila's dress appeared in front of my eyes and I felt ashamed that I didn't say anything when the woman had called her ugly. As she moved to the side, a tug on my arm made me realise I had clenched my hand around a handful of her skirt at some point, subconsciously.

I consciously myself let go, though I still huddled close beside Simila, who I looked up at sheepishly. She wasn't looking at me though. She looked solemn or pensive as she kept an eye on the people around us.

I heard The Rookery before I saw it.

There was the clinking of mugs and din of too many conversations that reminded me of the noise in the party for Count Yse yesterday. It was odd though. We had passed a number of pubs and taverns when we entered through East Gate and then again in lower town, but although some of them had song or some din, none of them seemed as crowded or alive as this place in the middle of the day. Here, there weren't just a few drinkers or loiterers and servers mopping up the floor or tables but a full house of raucous laughter and conversation in the dark inside.

Two men stepped out of a narrow doorway, tottering as they went their own way. Above the doorway was a wooden board with the words "The Rookery" half erased on it by rain and time. It was simple, but perhaps anything fancier would have been mockery, for the inside was an ugly sight.

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It was dark, even during the middle of the afternoon, smoke from tallow candles that were the only source of light.

Simila caught my arm when I almost slipped and fell on the layer of grime in front of the entrance. It wasn't just at the entrance though. The whole floor of The Rookery, not only was made of wooden boards that creaked under us, but was strewn with rushes and mud with bits of food and spills of ale. Judging by how the rushes and mud seemed to be thickest by the entry, I suspect it had little to do with any intentional flooring.

I looked around the tables at the men who were sitting there, most of them only giving me a moment's stare as we entered. Fortunately, even though we surely looked out of place, I was obviously not the first noble in a coat to walk into this place. They all quickly looked back at their games or midday pints.

I had trouble understanding how these men could all squint at the cards and dice on the tables by the light of the candles on the tables and torches on the walls. It was bright daylight outside. Perhaps I wasn't one to talk though, considering the amount of time I spent reading by the window at home.

"Hello, my lord, are you looking for someone?" One of the waitresses did come to greet us. She didn't ask us if we wanted a table, knowing we weren't her usual customers.

I sidled up a bit closer to Simila, but since she didn't say anything for me I had to respond.

"Where is the black rat?"

"Ah. You came to the right place. He should be out back. Follow me, please."

I looked up at Simila. But she just gestured for me to walk ahead of her.

Nothing seemed to surprise her, whether it was the alleyways before or the shoddy tavern now.

I stepped out of the noisy room and into a narrow hallway as I followed the waitress. The sounds of the tavern were muffled behind the door, but there was another din here, of shouting men.

I could smell some kind of food behind the first door we passed, but it was unclear what it was. It seemed to be less popular than the mugs of ale though. There were two men who grinned at the waitress rolling another barrel past us towards the tavern.

"They are making a soup back there. They would throw in anything and just boil it down. Not something you'd like much," Simila explained to me. She seemed to know this place or at least others like it.

'Out back', as the waitress called it, referred to a whole other alleyway that we came out into behind the kitchen. It was identical to the other side and just as crowded.

"Giacoob! I've brought two guests for you," the waitress shouted upwards, into the alleyway, probably meant for one of the rooms behind the shutters.

The one clear difference in this alley was the children my age.

Three girls stopped not far away and were looking at me and the waitress expectantly. At least two thirds of the people here seemed to be girls.

The oldest one reminded me a bit of Smiri this past summer. They both had their hair cropped short, like a boy, wore pants and had a kind of tomboyish look. Just that Smiri had a kind of feminine beauty that was different from this girl's androgynous face.

"Don't stare too much, yeah? He's just some rich brat come for a dealin' with Giacob." A boy said to them, shooing them back to play.

He then came up and bowed.

"Name's Kled," he told me smoothly, as if he didn't just say I was a 'rich brat' a moment before. "What's yer name?"

I had been distracted by all the new faces I didn't expect to see behind the tavern, but I didn't think this was a place I would find the Klisimian...

"Uh..." I looked at Simila, planning to tell her that maybe we should go, but she had a rare smile on her face as she looked around the alleyway.

"Where're yer from? Lookout, Westhill?"

I told myself it would be fine. Simila wouldn't let anything happen to me.

"Seventhill," I said and I saw the boy roll his eyes and relax a bit.

"Oh, yer from Sevenvill. How 'bout I show yer' round until the boss comes down?"

I was almost a bit insulted that he'd say it like that. Sure, Seventhill was a place only minor nobles and well-to-do if not wealthy guild merchants lived, but who was he to sneer at me just because of where I was from.

"Who are you, Kled? Why are there so many kids here?"

"Ya mean ya came 'ere but dunno anyving? This 'ere's The Rookery. Behind ya's the tavern the old man's runnin', and back 'ere's the orvanage."

I guess there would be an orphanage somewhere. I just never really though about it before.

"Are you all from South Gate?" There was no real name for the south part of the city. It was all just a part of South Gate, which included lower town, the gate itself and parts of the city outside the wall.

Kled turned and stood beside me, pointing me at one of the three girls he had talked to before.

"A lot of us. Lots of brovels around 'ere an' soldiers comin' and goin' to the souv. Not all of us though. Ya'd be surprised. See Palama over 'ere?" He pointed at the oldest of the three girls I had noticed before. "She was daughter of a lord, like ya are bevore her pa got done in. Why'd ya' vink they were lookin' at ya, eh? I vought ya' was one of us too until Jewcy called for Giacob."

I was having a bit of trouble understanding some of what he said. It took an especially long time to realise 'juicy' was what the waitress was called... Who in their right minds would call themselves Juicy?

"She was a noble?" That was surprising. I would have thought cousins would have taken her in.

"I ain't vrom Gristol neiver. Pa was a soldier under Leslie. Ya aren't wiv Leslie, are ya'?"

"My father's from Efeles."

"Good. I don't 'ave no problems wiv Efeles." He said, approving of me.

"Don't listen to a word he says, Lord Tilvrade."

Or at least I thought, until the familiar face of Geran's friend with the black coat from yesterday walked out into the alley.

"Hey, Giacob," the boy called Kled complained as the older boy walked up to him putting his hand out in front of him.

"Not this time, Bai. He's not what you're thinking."

Kled, or Bai, I don't even know now handed my sword over to Giacob and all I could do was stupidly feel for its pommel in the sheath on my belt where it should have been a moment before.

"That's my..."

"Lord Tilvrade," Giacob handed the sword back to me, then continued after nodding apologetically at Simila who was watching them with amusement. "I have a feeling you would have gotten your sword back anyway though."

I was shocked. It wasn't the envoy who had left me the note, but this boy.

I didn't know whether to be scared or intrigued. This boy I met yesterday was no lord, but an orphan, or at least a patron of this orphanage. I felt grateful that he returned my sword, but also shocked that whoever that was stole it without me even noticing him undo the straps.

What did he want, to invite me all the way here?