You can always tell when you've crossed into the Baronies.
The air gets thicker. Not mystical thick. Just… stew thick. Smoke from real fires, not incense burners. Bread that could knock a man unconscious. Beer that tastes like it was brewed by someone with unresolved anger toward wheat.
The food changes first. No more citrus and spice and delicate little plates pretending not to be meals. Out here it's slabs. Chunks. Things that once had opinions. I bought a ham the size of a small dog and the butcher wrapped it in paper like it was a newborn.
People change too.
Less perfume. More dirt under nails. Women built like they could lift a cart. Men built like they'd tried. Everyone looks you straight in the eye, like they're measuring your bones for winter.
Down to earth, they call it.
I call it blunt-force hospitality.
And gods.
It smells like him.
Not Ogden specifically—though if he's anywhere within three provinces there's probably a dented tankard and a broken chair to prove it—but his kind. Sweat and steel and stubborn honor. Cheap soap and righteous anger. Hay and horse and that particular brand of Baronial pride that thinks the world is a nail and they're the hammer.
This is his turf.
Gods know where that bastard is now. Probably arguing with a magistrate or bedding someone he'll disappoint heroically.
But out here?
Everything smells like him.
Or like the sort of men who'd drink with him, fight beside him, or lend him money he'd never repay.
I adjust my grip on the ham.
Baronies remember.
And I'm walking straight through the middle of them.
A whole ham. Glorious. Salt-crusted, heavy, fragrant with smoke and sin. Cost me more than I wanted to admit, but I was in the Baronies and pretending I had roots.
The Dragon was napping somewhere up the hill, snoring into a haystack like a retired apocalypse. So it was just me, my coin purse lighter, and my ham cradled like a newborn.
That's when he shuffled into my path.
Old. Scrawny. Beard like dried moss clinging to a fence post. Eyes sharp though. Too sharp for the rest of him.
He squints at me.
"You."
I keep walking.
He sidesteps. Blocks me with all the menace of a broomstick.
"You," he repeats.
I sigh. "Yes. Me. There are others, but none currently holding cured pork."
He points a crooked finger at my face.
"You're that harlot."
I glance down at myself. "Dress still on. Public square. Midday. Seems ambitious."
"I've seen you," he says. "Don't lie."
"I never lie," I say automatically, shifting the ham to my other hip.
"With that son of a bitch Ogden."
…Ah.
I go very still for half a breath.
"Lots of bastards in the world," I say lightly. "You'll have to narrow it down."
"Madrigal," he snaps. "Inn by the tannery. South road. Whole damn floor heard you. Bed squeaking like it was pleading for mercy. Him grunting. You howling like—"
He makes a vague lifting motion with his hands.
"—like a harvest hymn."
I stare at him.
"Not judging," he adds quickly. "You earn how you earn."
"How kind," I say flatly.
He scratches his beard.
"If you see that bastard, tell him he still owes me three hundred drachmae."
I blink. "For what?"
He narrows his eyes.
"He knows what for."
Of course he does.
The old man leans in closer, breath like onions and ancient grievances.
"And tell him next time he borrows a mare, he returns her without teeth marks on the flank."
He straightens, as if that concludes everything.
I shift the ham again. It suddenly feels heavier.
"Three hundred," I mutter. "Gods. I should've charged him stable fees."
The old man snorts.
"Baronies remember," he says. "Even when knights don't."
Then he shuffles off like a curse with bad knees.
I stand there in the square, clutching my ham, dust sticking to my ankles.
Baronies.
Yeah.
I can feel it now.