A man carries the whole of his fortune on one iron ring, and it makes no more sound than a fistful of coins.
I have watched him. He keeps small teeth of metal, each one cut different, each one no longer than my thumb. With them he shuts his door against the world. Not with a bar. Not with a good stout beam a strong man must lift. Only these little slivers, turned once, and the way is barred to any thief who has not their twin.
I marvel at it. In our village a man's only lock is the dog and the Lord's mercy and the fact that he owns nothing worth the stealing. This man owns much. I have seen the warm rooms, the light that needs no candle. And he guards it all with a trinket he loses in his own cloak twice a day, cursing, patting himself like a man searching for fleas.
One tooth opens his dwelling. One opens the iron cart that runs without oxen, which I will not speak of, for it is surely a sin. The rest I cannot name. He does not know them either. He keeps them for doors that no longer stand.
Here is the thing that sits ill in me. A man with a lock has something to lose. And a man who fears no thief in the dark, who forgets which teeth open what, has forgotten also how thin the beam is that holds the wolf from the door. We remembered. We remembered every waking hour.
God keep him. He does not know he is being kept.