As I ate my last spoonful, Zara slid into the chair across from me.

"Well, hello there," I said.

"Hi," she said, eyeing me up and down.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Hmm, just debating how much trouble a pretty face is worth.”

I smiled at that. "I think it depends on the kind of trouble."

Zara nodded seriously. "Yeah, it's that kind of trouble that concerns me."

I felt the blood drain from my face. "Zara, it isn’t that serious. I was just helping out my uncle."

She cut me off with a laugh and a smile. "Don’t worry, good looking. I’m not so shy of danger that I won’t take a chance. There ain’t nothing wrong with a few secrets. At least for now."

Unsure of how to respond to that, I decided to change the subject. "So, what are you doing after your shift is over?"

Zara rolled her eyes. "Bartholomew, you’re going to have to come up with something a little more original than that. I hear that phrase at least three times a day. Anyway, I’m not doing a lot tonight. Why do you ask?"

“Well, while I had a lovely time with you last night, I really was only able to see just the museum. I was wondering if my beautiful tour guide would be interested in showing me around again tonight.”

The waitress smiled at me; her eyes locked with mine. "I’m sure I could talk to her for you, but where did you want to go?"

I smiled back, our eyes still locked. "Is there anything unique within Glueburn that we could go, see? Perhaps a night market or something that shows off what the city has to offer."

Zara shrugged. "I can think of a few places."

She stood up and stretched. "Yep, come on then. We need to leave now if we’re going to make it to Bruno’s Folly before it closes."

"Now? Don’t you have to work?" I asked, looking around at the dining room area. While it wasn’t nearly as packed as when I first arrived, there were still quite a few people who hadn’t gotten their food yet.

Zara shook her head. "Nah, I should be good for today. I’m going to go talk to George and let him know I need to get off early. I’ll see you at the front door in a second."

"Okay," I said, placing a bronze piece on the table to pay for my meal, and walking outside.

A minute later, we were strolling down the street, and Zara was telling me about the city. “So apparently, Bruno’s Folly is a market that was first started about ten years after the founding of the city. As the story goes, Bruno was a rich farmer who owned most of the land along the other side of the Ildres River. Well, at its founding, Glueburn wasn’t a part of the empire and instead had its king and queen who had just spent most of the royal treasury on building this fine city. Anyway, the Ildres River was the border of the kingdom, and after a horrible winter, and a dry spring, the crops on this side of the river did not do well, and the city was starving. I don’t know a whole lot about farming techniques, but apparently, Bruno’s techniques across the river were far better than the farmers on this side, as even with such bad seasons, he was able to have a really good yield. So, Bruno was happy to sell the food across the river for a good profit.

But like I said before, the Kingdom had already run out of money building the city of Glueburn. They weren’t sure what to do until the Queen decided that for the good of the country, they would trade their daughter’s hand in marriage for food for the season. The king was of course horrified at the thought of his blood being mixed with the blood of a farmer. But after much convincing from his wife, he agreed. So, they, together with their best retinue, set off to go meet Farmer Bruno.

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Now according to the stories, Bruno was a man of money. He married young, but his wife died after a pregnancy went wrong. After that, Bruno focused on building his farm. After fifteen years, he was richer than most nobles and owned multiple merchant caravans. He had everything he had ever wanted except respect. I don’t know how much you know about human culture, but they have a strong class system. Bruno had risen as far as he possibly could, even in the Republic of Dalgust that he was living in, there was only so far, a farmer could go. So, when the King and Queen arrived and offered him the hand of their daughter as payment for food. Bruno jumped at the chance.

Bruno’s Folly, the market we are going to right now, was the first place Bruno’s wagons set up to hand out food. Two years passed, and with the assistance of Bruno, the Kingdom's coffers returned to a healthy level. The kingdom was happy, and news of the Princess’s pregnancy had been declared, filling the citizen’s hearts with hope for the future.

Everything was perfect, that is until the king realized something. After the risk of collapse had passed for the king, and he was once again comfortable in his position, he took the time to contemplate where his kingdom was at. And where he wanted it to be in the next ten years. Such thoughts angered him, because he could not see a way where Bruno did not gain more power, for he was loved by the people already as he was the one that kept starvation at bay for many of them. Such thoughts angered him more and more. And yet even that was not enough to make him take action. It was only when he thought about the unborn child who had peasant blood mixed in that he decided it was time to do something about Bruno. One chamberlain told a group of people that he walked in on the king rolling around on the ground chewing carpet and the next week Bruno died of an accident or so the authorities spread. But everyone knew what happened. So, the place where Bruno first set up his wagons became known as Bruno’s Folly. In honor of the man who had saved the city, but overstepped his station in the process and was killed as a consequence of such an act of rebellion.”

“That’s a wild story,” I said as we walked, “But that doesn’t make any sense. The royal family was the one who offered up the princess in the first place. How could anyone claim that it was through a fault of his own that Bruno was killed?”

Zara laughed and put an arm through mine. “Look at you, trying to understand a story told two hundred years ago as a way to keep down the common people.” She paused there, tapping her finger on her lips in contemplation, “I think maybe it is more about the nature of power than anything else. Like if a wolf offered to let you sleep in its den and you accepted. Should you be upset when you woke up one morning to find that it had torn out your throat? I think the name of the market is about the trustworthiness of kings. If they have to lower themselves for you, make sure you have a few bodyguards just in case.”

“I guess that’s fair,” I replied. ““Is that what you would have done in Bruno’s place? Hired bodyguards and hoped the king would give up after the first attempt was unsuccessful?” I asked.

“Of course not,” said Zara, shaking her head adamantly. “If I were Bruno, and I had already married the princess, given my popularity with the people at that moment, I probably would try to take over the kingdom.”

I shook my head. “If Bruno had enough political sway in the first place, the king would have thought twice about attacking him. For if the king had failed, it would have caused the nobility to rise in support of Bruno. Even if Bruno was killed, if he was influential enough, his death should have set off a rebellion against the royal family. After all, if the king starts attacking influential men, the nobility will see themselves as the next victim.”

Zara looked over at me as we walked. “Hmm.”

“What? I’m not just a pretty face, you know,” I said, winking.

She laughed. “No, no, I was debating whether I should take you to the market or not. Maybe I should take you somewhere better.”

I shrugged. “I mean, we are already on our way. Why don’t we stop at this market of yours first, and then we can go wherever else you want? You’ve already told me about the history behind the place. It would be a waste not to see it now.”

She appeared apprehensive but nodded her head, nonetheless. “I guess you're right.”

When we arrived, I was impressed by the number of people that fit within the square where the market was being held. There were people of every size and race I had never seen before, wandering around and buying food of every kind. Even with the mass of people and stalls, my eyes were drawn to the middle of the square where a twenty-foot statue of marble stood. The statue depicted a middle-aged, slightly overweight man who had been caught in the act of handing out a piece of fruit.

“I’m guessing that’s Bruno?” I asked Zara, pointing out the massive statue.

She shook her head. “No, in fact, that’s a statue of the king who killed him. The king was so annoyed when he heard the people had decided to name the square Bruno’s Folly, he hired several skilled craftsmen to build a statue of himself. There’s even a plaque below the statue that says, ‘Do not forget by whose hand you are allowed to live.’”

“Wow sounds like he would be a lovely dinner guest,” I said, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of such a king.

Zara and I wandered around the marketplace. She pointed out foods I had never heard of. I tried a few and found all of them to be strange just in different ways. For some, the flavor was familiar, but the texture was that of something I had never encountered. While for others, it was vice versa. Before I knew it, the sun was setting, stalls were closing, and the square had emptied.

I stretched and stared across at the setting sun, enjoying how its rays felt on my eyes. Zara had to run off to go grab something, and I was waiting for her, enjoying the weather. As she walked over, I asked “Where to next, Zara?”

“It’s a surprise,” she said, offering me a tired smile and pulling me towards a street that connected to the side of the square.

I followed, enjoying the evening. That enjoyment was interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind me. I moved to turn, but before I could, pain lanced through my skull, and darkness clouded my vision.

When I awoke, I was no longer in the street. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the dark room with my throbbing headache, but eventually, I found myself inside a large cage that could easily fit fifty people. Though there were only ten of us in the cage at the moment. I looked frantically around for Zara but was unable to find her.