The boy returned at dawn with the wooden blade and sleep still in his eyes. He did not ask for training. He stood where the stranger could see him and began to work as if showing up paid for the lesson.
The stranger gave him time the way a man pays for a cup. Exactly what it costs and not a coin more.
"Blade here," he said, and tied a strip of leather tight around the boy's forearm. "This strap remembers when you forget. Chin down. Knees soft. Live the first exchange."
He fixed grip and stance with two fingers and a hard eye. No praise, no comfort. When the cut hissed true, he said, "Again." When it did not, he said nothing. The boy tried harder. That was the point.
They made a slow circle of the market. The breadwoman passed heel ends as if it were nothing. The boy split them without being asked. The fletcher let the child loose two arrows into straw and pretended not to see either one. At the well the pulley screamed. The stranger took the rope in his hands and held while the boy steadied the bucket with both palms as if someone's life would spill if he slipped.
When the morning ran out, the stranger walked into an alley and the alley kept him. The boy lingered for three breaths, then shrugged at himself and went to sweep a floor that was not his.
By midday trouble came looking. Two Exalted grunts boxed the boy against a table and shook him for the coins he kept in the fold of his belt. One had a jaw like a mallet. The other had quick fingers and a laugh that was not his own.
Sera reached them first with a face that could have been bored. "You again," she said, as if seeing a stain that would not wash out. "Castle wants the south lanes empty by first bell. If a runner finds you here, it will be your hides hung out for the crows."
They blinked at the word castle and saw only work they did not want. Estaron arrived a beat later with the same tone he used on stubborn gates. "You want to explain to Master Counter Vell why your take is light?" he asked, and let the name sit like a coin on a table. "Move."
They hesitated just long enough to look foolish, then let go of the boy's shirt. The taller one leaned close enough for his breath to turn sour in the nose. "Next time, rat, we will relieve you of more than coin," he said softly.
They went away with their swagger leaking out the sides. Sera watched them leave the way a cat watches a dog and then crouched to the boy's height.
"Are you hurt?" she asked.
"I am fine," the boy said, which was almost true.
"Good," Estaron said. "Eat."
They shared a scrap of bread and a slice of pear on the low wall by the broken arch. The boy talked because no one had told him to stop. He slept in a loft over the tannery when the owner forgot to lock the ladder. He swept the bread stall at dawn for two coins. He carved a little wolf with a dull knife and bled on it more than once.
Estaron let the words run and gathered what he needed. Sera listened with her mouth straight and her eyes not.
"We have space up the hill," Estaron said when the pear was gone. "Food. Beds. Work that is not holding a stranger's boot with your teeth."
The boy shook his head so quickly the hair on his brow jumped. "The man who helped me," he said, and the words stumbled before they found the simple part, "he made me feel like I could fight back. I will go if he comes."
Sera's mouth softened in a way she did not allow often. "He does not seem the coming sort."
"Then I will wait," the boy said.
Estaron did not argue with that. He stood, set the small knife back in the boy's belt, and brushed dust from the boy's sleeve as if it mattered. "We will be nearby," he said.
Night took the market slow. The boy left a little carving by the place where the stranger slept, a wolf with too much jaw and not enough ear. The stranger found it later, turned it once in his hand, and put it in his coat like a secret he would not say out loud.
He slept under the arch with his face toward the lane and no blanket. Men who expect the world to try something sleep like that.