My Brother Bet I'd Be Dead by Spring, So I Made My Ruin the Strongest March in the Realm novel · Chapter 21 of 32

Chapter 21: Fire in the Market

I walked down the path at dawn in my gray dress, with nothing in my hands.

The market cross stood at the top of the market, where the path came down off the crag.

Enora had nailed her toll board to it in the winter.

I stood beside it and waited.

Below me the market ran in two rows of stalls down to the landing.

At the far end was the long wool shed, stuffed to the roof.

Katell's guild had left nine hundred crowns of hill wool in it to go down the road after midsummer.

For three days the women of Penhal had packed that wool into every stall, with every drop of lamp oil in the valley.

Nobody from the barges had come up to sniff.

The captain came up from the landing as the sun touched the top of the crag.

He didn't come alone.

He was a careful man, and he'd seen forty bows on my walls.

He brought his men up the rows behind him, rank after rank, until the market was full of gray from the cross to the water.

He stopped in front of me and looked me over.

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