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hundred and some children screaming and running and fighting and laughing, had given me an instant panicky feeling of being outnumbered. I’d ensconced myself at a corner, with my back protected from any sneak attacks and stood there, shaking, terrified that anyone would try to fight me or, even worse, talk to me.
    No one did. I guess they’d all been warned I was the Good Man’s son. No one even got near until Ben had come, sidling along the wall, his back against it, looking about as scared as I felt. And because he looked scared, I could talk to him, and eventually find out he wasn’t the frightened mouse he looked.
    I hadn’t felt so scared since. Eventually I’d found my way out into the world beyond my father’s walls. No matter how little he liked having me out of his sight (and he didn’t like it at all), I’d not only learned to navigate occasions of state, banquets of Good Men, and the company of their heirs, but I’d on my own—with Ben’s complicity, of course—found my way to the lowest dives in most seacities: the hangouts of working men, and the hangouts of men who didn’t work at all. Pubs and taverns, diners and broomer lairs, fences and dealers of smuggled goods. At one time, if the place opened off a narrow street populated by workers and those who labored in the gray and black economy, it would have been my natural habitat and I’d have moved through it as contentedly as a fish in the sea.
    But now I clung to the walls and walked looking straight ahead. I wasn’t bothered, anyway. Men my size rarely are, and I suspected my fear was translating itself into a death-glare, threatening bodily harm to anyone who came near or even looked at me twice. People gave me embarrassed looks, or glanced quickly away.
    The first fence I knew in Liberte was gone. The place where it had been had become a restaurant, advertising “cheap steak,” so I didn’t think they still operated. And if they did, I wasn’t likely to know how to go about signaling what I wanted.
    The next one I remembered, Lupin and Sons, was still the same dive I remembered, a narrow hole in the wall of a shop, the shop window filled with dusty bric-a-brac, in a pile and in no particular order, antique candlesticks and modern cheap power pack holders mingling with old clothes, boots that looked like they were walked into holes before being put on the shelf, and, disconcertingly, a stuffed squirrel, which had been there at least sixteen years. Its little beady glass eyes glared resentfully from under a layer of dust and cobwebs. For reasons known only to someone I hoped never to meet, it had been outfitted in miniature broomer kit, and was holding a tiny toy burner in its clawed fingers.
    The operators didn’t recognize me as I came in, which was odd since the man behind the counter was old Francois and his helper was his son Louis who was about my age and now had a receding airline. I knew they hadn’t recognized me because they both stared at me and I saw Louis’s hand move beneath the counter, doubtless reaching for the burner he kept there. The stories I’d heard was that no one tried to rob old Lupin’s twice. And since they kept the police properly bribed, their business remained profitable and stable.
    I said the words I had learned eighteen years ago, and which I hadn’t had to use since, since after the first few trades they’d known me. I’d sold clothes here, as well as some minor pieces of jewelry. My own jewelry, my only source of money, since Father kept me short of cred gems. “Robespierre sent me.”
    Louis didn’t relax, or move his hand from under the counter, but Francois stared at me, with a slow intent look, then held onto his son’s arm, as if to prevent him drawing, and said something quickly in the old French patois that is still used en famille in Liberte.
    Then he said, looking up at me still, “It’s been a long time.”
    I swallowed hard. “Yes,” I said. “But I’d like to do some