Taliesin slipped onto the trading floor in the shape of a young boy.
“Excuse me,” he said politely to one of the rushing, yelling brokers.
“What are you doing here?” said the broker. “You shouldn’t be here. Are you lost? Does anybody know who this kid belongs to?”
More brokers gathered around Taliesin, but none of them knew who he was.
“Lost boy?” they said. “Lost boy? Little boy lost?”
The question paralyzed the floor, locked out the usual chaos.

Hetty slept on her chair, her hands laced together over the head of her blackthorn cane.
She woke and found the floor choked and knotted up around the tiny figure of Taliesin.
“What? Who is that? What’s going on? Get back to your jobs, you lazy louts!”
Her cane beat a way through the brokers to Taliesin.
“Who are you, boy? Why have you come here?”

Taliesin grinned slyly.
“I have been a fish, I have been a pigeon, I have been a ring-tailed cat,” he drawled. “I have been a kernel of corn on the threshing room floor.”
“Gwion!”
Hetty raised her stick overhead and brought it down on his head — crash!

“Blrm, blrm, blrm,” said the brokers, and played on their lips with their fingers.