“The White Elk?” Kiri asked as Yensa gestured for her to precede her through the door. “Is it named for something in particular?”

“A white elk.” Yensa guided Kiri to an empty table. “No, I know what you mean, and yes, there is a story to it. Look over there.” She gestured at a multi-paneled fresco that covered one wall of the dining room. Kiri turned her chair a little to see it better and hoped the people sitting in front of it wouldn’t think she was staring at them. The panels showed a man falling away from a hunting party over a cliff, then, in the next panel, rising bloody and wandering between bare trees. Leaves painted flying by him and a faint bluish tinge to his lips showed that it was cold and windy. And then there was a majestic white elk among the trees. It laid down on the ground and the man curled against it. Then it led him along a path near his hunting party, who were searching and calling out with hands raised by their mouths. The final scene of the fresco showed the elk lying on the ground with an arrow through its neck, the man it had helped kneeling beside it.

“Well,” Kiri said. “I’ve never heard that story before. It’s sad.”

“I’m not surprised you’ve never heard it,” Yensa said. “This is the only place I’ve ever seen it. The proprietor says it happened to his grandfather, so it’s more of a family story than a popular folk tale.”

At that time a maid came by to bring them pies and thin wine. She asked if they wanted soup.

“Try it,” Yensa advised. “It's delicious.”

Kiri smiled and nodded. Once the maid was gone, she decided it was her opportunity to ask Yensa something she’d been curious about. There was no point in hiding her ignorance as a country girl, since Yensa already felt people from Westfall knew sheep and nothing else.

“I was at the market yesterday,” Kiri said. “And a glassmaker was robbed.”

“Really?” Yensa seemed surprised. “I hadn’t heard that. I’m sorry that happened your first time there. I hope it hasn’t given you a false impression. There’s no need to be afraid of the market. Robberies hardly ever happen anymore, especially in the last year, of course.”

Kiri made a mental note to ask what had changed in the last year, but pressed on with, having not yet gotten the information she wanted. “I’m not frightened. I believe you.” She waved away the concern with a lazy hand. “In a way that’s what I was wondering about. You see, that glassmaker didn’t seem frightened either. He didn’t even seem worried. He just said ‘I’m paid up’ and kind of seemed annoyed at my concern. What did he mean?”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Well, I would think he meant his protection,” Yensa said.

“Protection?” Kiri said. “What do you mean? Has he paid a fee to the city?”

“One could say it's a fee,” Yensa said. “But it is not paid to the city.” She glanced around. The group at the nearest table were having their own noisy conversation. They wouldn’t hear her. “Listen, it’s best not to talk about it too much, but protection is paid to the Thief Lord.”

“Just one more thing, and then I’ll stop talking about it,” Kiri said. “Why have things changed in the last year?”

“The protection goes way back,” Yensa said. “It worked well, and then there were the alarms--you heard one on this thief right?--maybe ten years ago, and that worked better. But some thieves still took the chance. But last year the Appearing started. Not many will risk that. They’re always caught.”

“Appearing,” Kiri repeated, putting the same emphasis on it that Yensa had. “I saw that. Two men appeared out of nowhere and caught the thief.”

“Right,” Yensa took a sip of wine. “Now let’s talk about something else.”

Having accidentally made friends with Yensa, Kiri was faced with a complex social maze to navigate in order to avoid befriending anyone else. She quickly found that the easiest way to turn down any invitation was to plead that she was too busy. Schoolwork was a decent excuse, and work for the royal purse was a better one. She spent so much time begging for more work from the accounts manager in the great room that she risked befriending him. One problem with not making other friends was that her only source of information about the city was Yensa, who had not even lived here much longer than Kiri, though she did seem to have heard about it all her life and visited regularly for the Festival in Red.

By the time Kiri had been in the city for ten days, she still had not gotten a chance to play the hero as the Firebrand. She was a little ashamed of herself for how much that bothered her. Surely it was more important that no one around was getting hurt, even if the reason was this “protection” and the Thief Lord, than that she be able to indulge her desire to be a hero. But she couldn’t really believe that the Thief Lord was doing good and making the city a great place. From what she had seen of him, she was sure harm was going on--somewhere. She just needed to know where to look to find it.

That night she turned down yet another invitation from the girls in the bunk room to go out, pleading work. After they had seen her head in the right direction to beg more work from the accounts manager she went a different way. A sharp turn just before the hall to the work room led down the servants’ stair. It was time to start looking into the areas where the lower classes of the city congregated. Her companion on the boat had given her some ideas, but her information must have been old. The Thief Lord’s protection was strong on the pleasure district and the docks, but if there was any neighborhood he was unlikely to care about, it was wherever the lesser classes lived. So Kiri decided she would follow them home.