On the day the Teller of Small Fortunes came to Necker, the village was in an uproar because the candlemaker’s would‑­be apprentice had lost all the goats.

Laohu plodded to a stop in the town square and Tao patted his rump. It had been a long day’s travel for them, through forest and field. The mule stamped his hooves and snorted, relieved to be done with it, his breath rising in steamy tendrils through the ­early-​­evening chill. It was Tao’s first time coming through Necker. She’d made good speed in anticipation of a hot meal and soft bed when they arrived, but the scene around her wagon gave her doubt she’d find much welcome at the moment. She sighed.

Wrapping the reins loosely over a wagon shaft, Tao swung gracefully to the ground, looking around at the activity. They’d come to a stop just in front of a ­tavern—​­a handsome one, two full stories and larger than a village like Necker rightly needed.

But where there should have been a crowd of ­well-​­fed villagers drinking ale, there was instead a strange assembly line, with rather a lot of yelling and chaotic banging of metal.

“One bucket o’ grain and a bell to each! Hurry up now, take a bucket, there’s a good lad.”

“And who’s to pay for all this grain, I’d like to know!”

“Oh, stuff it, Mallack, we can sort payment later; the headman’ll pay you fair for the grain and you know that’s true.”

“Yes, well, I’d like to be sure of the price afore all the grain is spilled through the woods halfway to the sea and none to account for it! There ought to be a premium for interrupting a man’s supper and raiding his stores without so much as a—”

“You scoundrel! If we don’t find them, Necker’ll be a ruin and your mill with it, for who’ll buy your grain when there’s no goats to feed and no coin to pay with?”