sounds

A few minutes passed, and Martin, lazily tapping his pencil on paper, seemed to have little interest in sounds. Then suddenly his attitude changed, his back straightened, and a look of passionate interest illuminated his sharp gray eyes. The door of the large room opened, and a boy came in quickly, a boy about the same age as Martin, but as dark and thin as Martin, tall and bright.

Torches flared murkily on the revels in the Maul, where the thieves of the east held carnival by night. In the Maul they could carouse and roar as they liked, for honest people shunned the quarters, and watchmen, well paid with stained coins, did not interfere with their sport. Along the crooked, unpaved streets with their heaps of refuse and sloppy puddles, drunken roisterers staggered, roaring. Steel...