It was near dusk when I arrived. The cold wind clung to me like regret, and I drew my coat tighter—against both the weather and whatever unease had settled on the city’s bones.

  Hasholm was quiet.

  That strained kind of silence cities wear when something’s coming, and no one wants to be the first to name it.

  The peddlers were gone. Those cheerful scoundrels—so adept at flaying the gullible with promises of miracle balms and imported spice—had vanished from their posts. The good herbs, the bad ones, and the truly alarming varieties had all been packed away, stalls closed like mouths refusing to speak. Even the ladies of the night lingered with detachment, silhouettes in lamplight, their usual calls softened to afterthoughts.

  Something in the air had turned. And the city, for all its noise and appetite, was beginning to notice.

  Even so, my spirits were high.

  I had spent the better part of the afternoon dragging words out of the wary, the bitter, the begrudging. Every man with an elbow on a bar had a theory; every woman with a prayer in her breath had a fear. And slowly, I was assembling a picture.

  The soldiers speak of movement. Regiments here, battalions there. They move, and they ready, and they pack. The cannoneers have doubled their pace. Some whisper of a halt in civilian gunpowder sales. A true sense of things in motion—or perhaps, more grimly, a preparation for stillness.

  The priests, of course, speak of the Saints. Always with reverence. But the rest of us shiver. No one denies their power. But they carry the aura of a living wildfire—beautiful and devout, yes, but out of control. Striking all, without question. Many have been summoned from their holy isolations, from their grateful penitence. A messenger told me the holy orders are stirring. Who knows where they move.

  The hagglers and shopkeepers speak of loss. Goods that were once commonplace—sugar, pepper, salts, the good herbs—are disappearing. Prices rise. Old world wares stall at the border. Letters of credit left unanswered. The scent of panic hovers just beneath the spice.

  And the blemmyes... the strangest miracle of all. Once thought more clever dog than citizen, they now speak. And not only speak, but with flair or flourish, insight, and clarity! Indeed, if I had actors like John while I conducted theatre, things could have turned out different.

  Most blemmyes have collected themselves in the River Quarter. They speak with officials. And with one another. It seems important—though no one knows why. The veil has lifted, and what stands behind it is, unsettlingly, present.

  Oh well. Many thoughts. Much to collect. And I will neither do it alone, nor on an empty stomach.

  I had set out with my graphite and ledger. Not toward the great halls or the scriptorium, no, that lead had lost its charm but to the one place in the city where the gossip ran richer than the tea:

  Linda’s.

  It wasn’t a tavern, not truly. Nor a teahouse in the fashionable sense. Linda’s sat somewhere between—a soft-cornered, steam-scented refuge tucked beneath a sagging awning on East Mallow Street. The patrons were teachers, scriveners, pensioned soldiers, retired couriers—folk who read papers not for power, but for the puzzle of it. Folk who spoke with their hands as often as their mouths. Folk with theories.

  I liked them very much.

  The bell above the door gave its cheerful trill as I stepped in. The place smelled of cardamom and wood smoke.

  It was a pleasant place. Modest, but with charm in its bones. Decor of mismatched wood and faded tapestries, the kind chosen by taste rather than trend. Long rows of seating stretched along windows that looked out onto a still street, where lanterns flickered like tired sentries. Inside, there was some laughter, some discord. A few sharp words about taxes. More about saints. A place alive, but not rushed.

  I chose my seat with care, as I always did: close enough to the three old men who argued like generals over ferry routes and conscription rates, but not too far from the group of shopkeepers’ wives whose voices wove gossip into scripture. Between them I could gather a full tapestry of Hasholm.

  I opened my ledger and uncapped the graphite, fingers already itching to catch the turns of phrase and the half-truths behind them.

  “Adalbert?”

  The voice was gentler than expected—warm, but younger.

  It was Ronja, the maid. Newer to Linda’s than most, but she moved through the place like she’d grown up inside its walls. She wore her apron like armor and offered smiles with professional detachment—except to me, which I appreciated.

  I nodded to her. “Evening, Ronja. A pot of the usual, if God still favors me.”

  She nodded in graceful acknowledgment and tilted her head. “‘You still scribbling for the book?”

  “Always.”

  She looked at the ledger, then the old men, then the window. “You’ll have no shortage of scribbles tonight.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “And what are your thoughts, child?”

  She hesitated, then pulled a stool halfway under her. As if chairs where merely a tool to lean on.

  “My mum and my dad have naught to say,” she said. “They worry about the corn taxes, and the window tax. If trouble brews, all expenses rise, and they know it. I help here, support us ‘best I can.”

  Her eyes scanned the room with tired realism. “Linda’s takes my mind off things.”

  A pause. Then a soft shrug.

  “That’s my thought.”

  I tapped the page and made a note.

  “Then it’s worth the ink.”

  Ronja smiled. “The usual, then!”

  The wait for supper was not long. The pot of the day simmered quietly by the fire, as it always did—steam curling gently above its wide iron lip. A healthy scoop into a deep-bellied bowl, a hunk of broken bread, and a sprig of greenery laid on top as if that made it fancy.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  It smelled more lovely than usual today. Or perhaps I was hungrier than I’d let on.

  She returned with the tray and a practiced grace, setting it down before me with the ease of someone who had carried heavier burdens.

  “Thank you, Ronja. Send my warmest to Linda.”

  “I will. Well then, duty calls!”

  With that, she vanished back into the low clatter of cups and conversation, apron flaring like a banner behind her. I lifted my spoon and my pen, and gave them equal respect.

  The conversation swelled around me like tidewater. From my right, the wives had moved on to spices and saints, in equal measure. From my left, the old men were mid-argument about troop movements—one claiming he'd seen Dreml's men drilling twice the usual number this week, another swearing the halt on powder sales was a sign they were already out.

  Then came the voice from the far bench, nasal and loud enough to cut through the soup steam. "I tell you, the Blemmye turned blue. Soul rot, they said. Said he was speaking like a priest!"

  Another cackle answered him. "Soul rot? That beast couldn’t spell his own name last winter. Smith told me he tried to bless a broom." Laughter again, rough and mean. “What do they call him now—John? Might as well call a mule "High-Vicar.’”

  I clenched my spoon tighter.

  I could have stayed quiet. Truly, I intended to.

  But the words were out before I’d finished chewing.

  “John spoke better than half the ministers at court!”

  Silence rippled outward like a dropped cup. I catched myself standing. Some truths need height, I suppose.

  “Not soul rot, but soul stirred. He stood in the Studium's highest hall and spoke of storms, of shifts, of the Veil. He did not whimper, not even a tremble. He told us what we were too proud to see.”

  "Ah! A rector too proud to listen, and a chronicler too stubborn to be silent! Where have I heard this before?"

  Linda. Perfect timing.

  She had summoned herself from the curtainworks like a spirit of better sense, roaming taller than most men, her bearing upright and commanding, as if the room had always belonged to her. She was not smiling yet, but the corners of her mouth curled like a curtain waiting to part.

  She strode into the clearing I had carved with my words and made it a stage.

  She looked at me—only me—with the knowing grin of a jester and a judge.

  "But did he not shoot fire from his eyes when he spoke?" she asked, leaning dramatically against the side of my table.

  "No, fine madam," I said, already playing my part. "The only fire was his heart."

  "And did he not call thunder with a stamp of his foot?"

  "Only the kind that rumbles in the soul."

  "Then he’s a quieter prophet than the ones we’re used to." Her eyes glittered with pleasure. "Pity. We do love a bit of noise."

  "Sometimes silence speaks louder."

  She beamed. "And look who’s learned to deliver a line."

  The room chuckled—eased now, watching the rhythm between us. We were back in the theatre again. But the words we played with were real.

  "So," she said, still not turning to the room, still speaking only to me, "when he stood there, this John of yours, did you believe him?"

  I paused.

  "Yes."

  And that, for now, was enough.

  "Let me ask, then," she continued, addressing the wives’ table first. "If the Blemmyes spoke—if they warned of tides and veils—why do we mock it? Because their words lacked polish? Because their skins do not shine like ours in courtlight?"

  She turned toward the general bench. "And you, old men of the ferry tables. You speak of troop drills and border closures, but do you not also fear what moves beneath your feet? Would you rather hear a storm from the lips of a soldier than from a prophet?"

  I watched her. I couldn’t have scripted it better.

  She pivoted to me without ceremony. "Well, Chronicler? If the world is creaking open, as you say, what are we to do with the crack?"

  I stood again, this time with new vigour. The room waited.

  "What are we to do? I will tell you."

  My voice was not raised. But it carried all the same.

  "We are to listen. We are to record. We are to remember. I have spoken to merchants whose ledgers are ash, to priests who fear the very miracles they invoked, to soldiers who can no longer name their enemy. And I have listened to Blemmyes—yes, them—who speak now not in that old grunt. They speak of change!"

  “I was present—yes, there—when the University split as if under divine indictment, and the dark poured inward like ink through parchment seams. I heard the uproar. I watched them move.”

  I tapped my spoon once—gently, ceremonially—against the table.

  "I saw dear Lotte still a guardsman with a glance, catch steel mid-flight, and negotiate like an ambassador of old!” I lowered my breath, like a hush.

  “I saw a crack in our world, form.”

  I turned in a slow circle. "Do you want to know what we are to do with the crack?"

  I tapped the ledger at my chest.

  "We wedge a record into it. A witness. A spine. A warning. Because when the wall crumbles, and the storm returns, and no torch will stay lit—this is what must remain."

  The silence before the storm. Then, a roar.

  The eating hall cheered, like from our finest North Side stagings of old. Linda smiled with earnest. Thank you for the indulgence, it seemed to say. My smile answered in kind.

  "Oh great Chronicler Adalbert, may I sit with you?" she asked, only half-mocking, sweeping an invisible train from behind her skirts.

  "With pleasure, Miss Linda," I replied, gesturing to the space beside me.

  She took her seat like a woman claiming a stage. Gone was the theatre of the moment before—what remained now was the warmth, the closeness. She poured herself a cup of the lukewarm tea Ronja must’ve abandoned midway, and then glanced at me with that raised brow she always reserved for questions that mattered.

  "You’ve not been here in a time, Adalbert," she said, In a tone somewhere between accusing and noting. "Too busy up at the Council?"

  "The Grand debate," I admitted. "They wanted something official. Something lasting."

  "Pah," she waved a hand. "You were meant for livelier words than that. Their parchment will smother you."

  "And yet I let them wrap me in it."

  "And yet you escape to my table."

  "It’s not an escape," I said, turning my spoon. "It’s a return, in fact. A new project—one that needs less incense and more noise. I came here to hear the ground creak."

  "It creaks plenty these days. You should hear the bricklayers scream when the mortar won’t bind."

  I chuckled. "You always did know where the real pressure lies."

  "Don’t flatter me, Adalbert. I’m too old for it, and you’re too practiced. Now," she leaned in with a glint behind her eyes, "what have ye mighty hands jotted down today?"

  "Fever, mostly. Half-truths and rationed sense. Hearsay given a semblance of structure."

  "So—journalism, then."

  "Worse. History in the making.”

  She tilted her head, the smile faltering. Not yet vanished, but tempered.

  "So what is the historical narrative unfolding?" she asked. No flourish now. Just quiet curiosity, cut with something heavier.

  I lowered my spoon.

  "I’ve seen troops moving with no drums. Provisions pulled from storage too early in the season. Orders locked down, quiet and sudden. The ground is shifting, Linda. The Blemmye have spoken, and not just to scholars. Priests speak of them now in circles I’m not meant to overhear."

  "And you think this is just the start."

  "I do. The beginning of a very grim chapter. The kind people don’t write poems about."

  She sighed, eyes flicking to the window. "So I should stock up. Save grain. Salt meats. Lock the good wine?"

  "Indeed," I said. "And you should do it soon."

  Her smile returned, smaller but not bitter. "So I should make you pay your account, is what I hear?"

  I returned it with a tilt of my head. "You probably should."