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it. She motioned for Colin to help her. “He should want to have refugees flooding the town. He could double its size within months. There’d be more land producing goods, more tradesmen producing wares. Trade would increase. He’d be wallowing in the profits!”
    “Portstown has already doubled in size,” his father said, as he continued with his own move. “There’s a new mill along the river, at least five new merchant houses, two taverns, a granary. But none of that matters. He doesn’t need profit, he’s already wallowing in it.”
    “Then what’s he looking for?” Paul asked.
    “Status.”
    Everyone at the table turned toward him. Sam frowned. “What do you mean?”
    Colin’s father paused, caught their intent looks, then set his cards down. “It’s all political. I think Sartori sees Portstown as his path into the Court. Look at what he’s done with the land since we arrived. He’s parceled it out to members of various Families in Andover, to their lesser sons, to those allied strongly with the Carrente Doms and their immediate successors. Last week, he awarded a huge chunk of land to the east to the third son of Dom Umberto, a thousand acres of arable farmland at least.”
    Paul choked on his ale. “Umberto is part of the Scarrelli Family!”
    His father nodded, anger touching his eyes. “Sartori is curr ying favor with his allies and the Family trading companies, using the land as his collateral. In exchange, he’s gaining influence in the Court. That’s where the Armor y is coming from. His allies are bringing them in to protect their interests here in Portstown. He’s never going to award the land to any of us, because we don’t have anything that he needs. We can’t help him take advantage of the Feud in Andover. Look at all of us here in Lean-to! We’re either bonded to one of the rival Families of the Carrentes, or we’re miscreants, troublemakers, or criminals shipped here from Andover.”
    Colin’s mother snorted. “We came here to escape the Feud.” No one responded. Rain began pounding on the roof of the hut, leaking through near the covered hole where the smoke from the fire could escape. Colin’s mother shook her head and set a pot under the drip before returning to the carcasses. They’d finished the two rabbits, had begun working on the prairie dog.
    As Colin began cutting it open, careful not to damage the hide, since his mother could use the pelt, he said into the silence, “I saw it.”
    All of the men turned toward Colin. The knife slipped in his hand, narrowly missing his palm.
    “What did you see?” Shay asked.
    Colin forced his hands to stop trembling. “I saw the farm, the one given to Umberto’s son. On my way back from the plains.”
    His mother gasped as she took the prairie dog and knife from him. “You were out that far into the plains? I told you to stay close. We don’t know what’s out there!”
    “Ana,” his father said, and his mother fell silent with a glower. His father didn’t notice, his attention on Colin. “What have they done so far?”
    Colin glanced toward Sam and Paul, toward Shay, who’d shifted forward. He didn’t like the darkness in their eyes, the intensity, especially in Shay’s. Their cards had been forgotten. And the ale.
    Thunder growled overhead as Colin said, “They’ve plowed at least two fields. And the garden.”
    “What about the house?” Sam asked. “The barn?”
    And suddenly Colin understood. They were carpenters and masons and smiths. They could have been hired to help raise the barn, to help build the house.
    But they hadn’t been. Just as they hadn’t been hired to help with the new buildings in Portstown, the mill or the granary.
    He swallowed against the sourness in his stomach, against the faint taste of bile in the back of his throat, and said, “The barn is already up. The house isn’t finished, but—”
    “But it’s been started,” his father finished for him as all four of them slumped back