“Roll up, roll up,” called the blind peddler, tapping around with his stick to make sure he had a clear space before laying out his pack. “I’ve potions to soothe your head and balms to soothe your aches, lucky charms and wise words. Roll up, roll up!”<br/><br/>He was middling tall, the blind man, with a clean-shaven face that might be called handsome by someone with the right tasted and shaggy brown hair held back by the strip of black cloth that covered his eyes. He worked quickly and carefully, unpacking his wares by feel and setting them out by size and shape of bottle.  From the surety of his motions, it was clear he’d been blind long enough to have learned to live with his disability.<br/><br/>“Roll up, roll up,” he called. “Blind Tom’s the name!  And Blind Tom’s patent potions are the cure for your troubles!”  He jabbed out with his stick, managing to point out a rotund merchant passing by. “Aides for the digestion. Philtres to keep the ladies happy!  And...”. The stick lashed down, cracking the knuckles of a sticky-fingered young man who was trying to lift a bottle. “Nine if that now, my lad!  It’s Blind Tom, not Blind<i>and </i>Deaf Tom!”<br/><br/>“And it’s lass, not lad!” the youth snapped back, sucking bruised knuckles.<br/><br/>“Then that’s the wrong potion, young lass!” Blind Tom laughed, nudging the bottle with his stick. “If your man’s not lasting, you want this one.”<br/><br/>“Phaugh,” the girl spat. “I’ve got no man.”<br/><br/>Blind Tom hunkered down, fingers drifting until he found a small round bottle. “This one, then,” he said with a conspiratorial whisper. “Dab it behind your ears and between your breasts, and the boys - and, more importantly, the<i>men</i>- will be vying for your favor.”  He held it up, almost in front of her eyes. “Three shillings.”<br/><br/>“One,” she countered.<br/><br/>-*-<br/><br/>In truth Blind Tom - or Rob Isley, to use his real name - could see perfectly well. The black gauze bound about his eyes darkened his vision slightly, but he could see well enough to watch the girl’s reaction. She was pretty enough, he decided. Not a great beauty, but charming beneath her scowl. He let himself be talked down to a shilling sixpence, because it was just perfume cut with cheap wine that he’d murmured a few words over. But from the exaggerated sway in her hips as she walked off, and the interests looks a few village boys cast her way, the magic was clearly working.<br/><br/>“Roll up, roll up!” he called. “Charms and medicines, and rare books.”  Rare for this village, at least. Common enough in the city he’d fled, though. “Roll...”<br/><br/>Nobody was paying attention. Everyone was watching the puppeteer, who some goodwife was loudly proclaiming a witch. A bravo of some sort he’d her right, assisting the constabkes in bonding her, and...<br/><br/>Oh. Oh<i>shit</i>. He<i>knew</i>that bravo. Well, more accurately, he<i>recognized</i>that bravo. Hell, he’d<i>fucked</i>that bravo one night a month and a half back, when he’d had a belly full of cheap wine and an itch that needed scratching. It had seemed a good idea, drunk in the dark, but not so much so the next morning.<br/><br/>Not that Xavier had been a bad lay. He just wasn’t Rob’s type. Far too sour, for one thing.<br/><br/>But the puppeteer, now. She looked like a wild type. Perhaps a little<i>too</i>wild?  Perhaps. But, well, she certainly looked like she’d be worth the risk to find out. Assuming they didn’t stretch her fair neck a few inches on the leafless tree for witchcraft, anyway.  But that was none of his business.<br/><br/><b>It is your business.</b><br/><br/><i>Shit.</i><br/><br/>Umbra stood at his left hand and Halo at his right, the black and silver hunting cats of the Four-Faced Moon. Invisible to everyone else, they were there to harass him into some daft errand of the daft Changing God.  “Go<i>away</i>,” he hissed.<br/><br/><b>She is not our Master’s, but she is touched by the Moon, </b>Umbra declared.<br/><br/>“That’s nice,” Rob hissed. “So it’s nothing to do with..,”<br/><br/><b>It is the desire of Teldir that she receive aid,  </b>added Halo.<br/><br/>“...me, and why in the hells do I bother?” he sighed. “Piss off. I’m<i>busy</i>.”  Busy not getting hanged for helping an accused witch, he added.<br/><br/>The cats vanished without a word. He didn’t relax. They would, he knew from long experience, be back.