Was It a Blessing or a Curse?

Early the next morning, Thomas was jolted awake by a racket outside.

Through the window came the clang of metal striking stone, the rough shouts of workers, the clatter of wheels rolling over uneven ground, and the barks of someone who sounded like a foreman.

The sounds blended into a wall of noise that pierced the inn's rather thin glass window and burrowed into his ears.

Irritated, he sat up and rubbed his temple, which throbbed faintly from lack of sleep.

Thomas was thoroughly fed up. First, the market had been closed when he went there; now he'd been woken by all this noise. And with his actual work on top of it, his impression of Budweis City was about as poor as it could be.

Pavel, in the next room, had also been woken. He mumbled and rolled over, pulling the covers over his head, but it clearly did no good.

There was no going back to sleep, so they washed up and went downstairs for breakfast.

They met on the stairs.

"What's going on outside?" Thomas asked, his voice rough with sleep and annoyance.

Pavel sounded just as displeased. "Sounds like they're tearing down a house—or fixing the road?"

Some early risers were already seated in the restaurant on the inn's ground floor. Most looked as if they'd also been woken, their faces wearing the same bewildered, disgruntled expressions.

They found a table by the window and ordered a simple breakfast: dark bread, fried eggs, a local cheese with a strong flavor, and hot milk.

After eating a fried egg, Pavel glanced outside at the commotion, then got up and walked over to the innkeeper, who was wiping cups behind the counter, with the ease of a regular.

The innkeeper was a plump, kind-faced middle-aged man.

"Boss, what's