It was getting extremely near to noon, so Diggory peeked his head out of the cluttered storage shed after a couple more minutes of hiding. Security confirmed, he practiced his sneaking move set by doing a diving roll into the street and springing up lightly onto his feet.

The proud thief waited for the inevitable applause his well performed tumbling should rightly garner and then mocked a pouting look when he realized the empty street and it’s inanimate inhabitants would never oblige him. Comprehending that his mock pout was also wasted on the area, he grinned wryly and retraced his path along the Little Way, then took a right towards Market Square.

Passing out of Seaside Residential, Diggory re-entered the austerely styled blocks around Market Square and the business district. He circled back to the right of the Market, travelling north now, and plunged again into the multi-story buildings and wide streets of the business district.

The street Diggory was on joined in a few blocks with one coming from his left to become The Way. The roads here were more thinly peopled now, most denizens and visitors of the city mobbing restaurant fronts near the docks or the higher-class vendors of Salarium Courts near Landside Residential and the Vestria. He began to encounter some resistance traveling against the unwashed horde of pedestrians going south, so he joined the eager little stream of merchants, nobles, and middle-class citizens that were heading north to home or a reservation at a restaurant on the Salarium Courts.

Diggory reached the Courts a few minutes after noon and stopped at their gate to appreciate the affluence arrayed before him.

…

Wall to wall shops and restaurants painted a rich variety of colors, from noble purple and cobalt to sea green and earthy brown, lent each impressively tall, generously wide and deep or deceptively simple and elegant building of the Salarium Courts their own unique character. Compared to that visual feast the southern half of the city, from it’s destitute slums, simple southern Residentials, docks, taverns, and even the compact and highly competent architecture of the Business district was rendered dull and without aesthetic merit.

From the Salarium northward Abel was a city of wealth and extravagance, with a little middle class comfort sandwiched in between.

…

Diggory beamed greedily at the potential profit represented by the many well-dressed and healthy looking individuals that filled the Courts. Exotic, expensive satins, samites, silks, carlines and yonslips covered modestly or molded perfectly to women young and old, both sets walking with the same poise that status invariably brings. Men accompanied them or went solo in well cut suits, wildly colored merchants silk toga’s and nobleman’s impeccably cut vestiments. Visiting foreigners wore even more diverse outfits such as drooping Porrs pantaloons and dragging sleeved shirts, Klepp cotton trousers and tees, and the skintight tan breeches and white silk doublecoats of Lechy.

The young thief shook his head to dispel the fog of luxury that clouded it, then threaded through the milling, raucous crowd, moving toward the crowded steps of Millers Rest.

…

Miller’s Rest likely hadn’t served any millers for more than a hundred years, but in the cities infancy the restaurant had been the first to gain a reputation of serving excellent food. The famous cook that the first Count (at that time a Mayor) had brought in from Glauston had been what fostered the excellent culinary reputation of Miller’s Rest, and that cook was brought in because of the old count’s of Abel’s desire to foster goodwill with the troublesome and powerful Miller’s guild that was, at that time, a serious force in The Kingdom. The clout the Miller’s guild had held was most potently felt in the southern quarters of the country, surrounding and including Abel, making the centuries dead Counts need to court them paramount in building up his new cities potentially burgeoning economy.

The Millers, having been drawn to the restaurant from their industry in the surrounding area by sheer curiosity at the rarity of high class southern Kingdom restaurants, as well as the fact of its welcoming name, had frequented the former town in droves. Because of these and other strategic moves made by the shrewd founding Count, the young town of Abel won over the best Mill talent from its rivals Suden, Waycastle, Endroch, and Millsbrooke. It’s prosperity had been thusly assured.

Progress eventually led to the establishment of a neighborhood to the north of Miller’s Rest, and that neighborhood formed the nuclei for the middle-class Landside Residential and then later the noble neighborhood of the Vestria, at which point the town of Abel had become so prosperous that it was granted cityhood.

The moneyed classes of the rich, northern neighborhoods of the city would come to dominate the affairs of Abel and the imagination of poor citizens, such as Diggory Dug, in the numerous profitable years to come.

…

Shouldering through the boisterous mass of reservation holders that surrounded Miller’s Rest was no easy task and Diggory actually had to lower a shoulder and apply in full force his still growing teen strength to the task before he made any headway. Some jostled citizens gave him dirty looks or pushed back. A few stared at him pointedly and in snobbish disgust at his apparel.

The upbeat thief saw motion out of the corner of his eye and turned, noticing a burly man dressed in a nondescript tunic and leggings shift his intense gaze away from him. He shrugged at this and pressed on.

Diggory felt a growing premonition of danger as he neared the front of the restaurant. He brushed it off as best he could, determined not to let a girl like Myrta upset his endless goodwill. But he just couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere, something had gone very wrong, so he decided to turn back and take a few shortcuts, circle the Courts, and begin a thorough stakeout of the area. This decision came right before he heard Myrta’s familiar voice shout out, rudely:

“I ordered more coffe ages ago, regatista, so please stop dragging your feet and deliver it here.”

Diggory scanned the completely full, fenced in open-air tables in front of Miller’s Rest and located Myrta sitting alone at a table near the door. She was wearing a fetching pink dress and blue summer coat as well as a ribbon bedecked bonnet to shield her head from the noontime sun. The outfit afforded a rare, increased visibility of her womanly charms, which seemed like an obvious bonus to Diggory.

Myrta flashed her presumably anger red face around the crowd and briefly allowed her gaze to rest upon Diggory, her expression changing for a second to plead silently with him to do something.

The apprehensive thief was seen exactly as he was about to disappear so he willed himself to be more positive and flashed a toothy grin at Myrta, then made his way inside the restaurant’s open front door to meet her.

At the same time that this nonverbal exchange occurred, a harried looking waiter did an about face from bringing the plates stacked on his left arm back to the kitchens and returned to Myrta’s table. He raised the half-empty coffe pot in his right hand to pour and then paused, looking down closely at her full cup.

“Miss, I believe I just filled your cup for the first time not a minute ago, and its level is the same as when I left it. Do you mean to have-?”

“No…I…oh I don’t care anymore,” she replied. Myrta had lost all the anger she’d summoned to make her previous outburst and slumped down in her chair, appearing defeated. “Just go away, please.”

Diggory was close enough to hear Myrta’s part of this exchange and he gaily wondered at the cause for her dispirited tone.

“Hello there, Myrta dear,” he cried out, jovially, as the waiter retreated to the kitchens and he arrived at her table. “I’m sure you’re thrilled at my near punctuality, but try not to act too surprised. You know how close to my heart you are, but of course I am a man wanted by many.” He chuckled, appreciatively, at his little quip.

“Correct. You are wanted,” said a barrel-chested, gray-haired man sitting at the table next to Myrta’s. He was dressed conservatively, like an off duty soldier, and he turned and locked eyes with Diggory after he said this, the scar that ran from his ear to his chin giving his square face a fierce aspect.

“And even if Myrta,” the man stressed her name, “is not appreciative of your excellent timing, my men and I are.”

Diggory looked at Myrta in smiling confusion. She finally looked up from her empty plate and full coffe cup, her face and puffy eyes now obviously red from crying.

“I couldn’t get any warning out to you!” she suddenly sobbed. “I did try to let you know about all of this when I shouted about the coffee, but…oh Diggory, my father found out about our little trysts! I never meant to reveal it all in the way that I did, but the guards caught me trying to sneak out of the Holt this time. I never tried to leave during the day before, and when he found out about all this he threatened to…he threatened to hang my maid Myrta for treason!”

Diggory felt a strong hand land on his right shoulder, then another on his left. Their grip was unyielding.

“I hate to interrupt, but you both have a very important meeting to keep with Count Eberlain. He hates to be kept waiting,” said the gray-haired speaker Diggory assumed to be the group’s leader, as the man stood up from his table.

By now all conversation had ceased at the open tables of the terrace. Whispers and shushes spread the news of what was occurring out as far as the rapidly quieting crowd that fronted the restaurant.

“Count Eberlain!? But why?” Diggory’s mind raced. “I am a law abiding citizen of Abel and I must regretfully inform you that arrests are illegal unless you formally charge the suspect with whatever crime you claim they’ve committed. Please do so in order for me to politely refute your claims.” His voice was cocksure, but his smile lacked conviction in the face of the inevitable conclusion he felt approaching.

“Ha! We have a regular scholar with us here, boys!”, the leader hooted. He instantly sobered. “You’re not formally arrested yet, but the Count must firmly request that you attend to him. You know that you must obey his summons, so please do us all the honor of shutting your mouth and coming peaceably with us.” The two men holding Diggory’s shoulders tightened their grip and stepped closer while a couple more tough looking false-diners got up from a nearby table and crowded around him.

Diggory could feel the trap slam shut, yet he grinned at his captors cheekily.

“So I’m to give out more honors, huh? This really is my lucky day.”

…..