As he swerved toward the left lane, oil-slipping past a pair of cutpurses who thought themselves discrete behind the flap of a greasy tent, Vilon found Owen exactly as he had hoped to find him: entirely ready to get out of this damned cursed place.
"Ser!" Owen called out, his eyes instantly lighting up with the frantic relief of a boy who had spent the last hour on high alert.
With one hand casually resting behind his thigh and the other tightly gripping Chestnut's leather reins, the square-jawed boy proved he had delivered precisely what he had been bidden to do,protect their property. The left part of his hip, where the heavy pouch of coin hung, was firmly pressed against the dense flank of the warhorse, utterly preventing anyone from the swarming, desperate crowd from getting a clean slash at his purse strings.
Vilon had to give it to his squire; the lad was far smarter than he had been at that age, which, in truth, was barely four years ago.
