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loathsome Lothario going to ruin my time in the Village. Roger was right. I needed to learn enough in the next few weeks to use in my dissertation. Henry wasn’t going to get in my way.
    “I’m glad to see you’re dressed sensibly,” Roger said. “We have to wear very plain, craftsman type of clothes here. Everything we wear while we’re working with the glass should be made of cotton or leather, and no open-toed shoes. Blowing glass and even doing these ornamentals can be dangerous. I see you’ve brought some gloves. That’s a good idea. You can’t wear them out here for demonstrations, but you can wear them in back with the furnace when we get it working again.”
    “I can’t wear jeans and a sweater when I’m working,” I explained. “Portia would only give me a witch’s costume.”
    “I’ll talk to her and we’ll get something set up, even if you have to dress like a boy.” Roger shook his head. “I voted for this idea about Halloween. Visitors are always a little slack this time of year. Now I’m not so sure. Some people seem to have gone overboard with it. I hear there’s a falconry show where the falcon actually flies into the audience and pretends to pluck out someone’s eye. It’s a resident planted in the audience, of course. But it’s pretty gross just the same.”
    Henry laughed. “My uncle’s a little old-fashioned, Jessie. He thinks Halloween should be all pumpkins and black cats. I heard they’re doing the jousts to the death complete with fake blood.”
    I shrugged. “None of it’s real. I guess it doesn’t matter much what they do.”
    “But some of it is real, at least lately,” Henry said. “Like Death dying today.”
    “Now that was an extreme circumstance and a terrible accident, I’m sure.” Roger said it like he was reading a press release. “This hot weather can get the best of anyone.”
    That and a little rebar. We walked over to one of the workbenches where I’d be learning my craft. “So what will I do first? ”
    “First of all, I want to make sure you understand that you won’t be a certified glass worker when you finish this apprenticeship. It took me more than ten years to become a master glassblower, and that’s only in the states. In Europe, it’s much more difficult. There’s a formal program a person has to pass before earning the title.”
    “I understand. And you know what I’m looking for out of this. So where do we start? ”
    “Good enough.” Roger nodded. “We’ll be doing lamp-work while you’re here, unless we get the furnace working. We’ll start with the basics. This will be your workbench. Keep it clean and free of unused material. Remember you’ll be working with flame and it can be dangerous.”
    “Yes it can,” Henry added. “You can look at either of our arms and see what he means.”
    Henry rolled up his sleeves. Roger did the same in grand dramatic fashion. Both of them had scars on top of scars crisscrossed from their hands to their shoulders. It was pretty effective as a safety lesson. It might be manly to be scarred that way, but the only scar I wanted was a pirate tattoo.
    Roger had just begun explaining about the process of removing stresses introduced into glassware during the glassblowing process when the door to the shop flew open and the Black Dwarf all but fell across the threshold.
    “Someone help! Call the bailiff. There’s another death in the Village!”

Three

    “ W here at? ” Roger helped the Black Dwarf to his feet.
    “I saw him near the fountain at the Hawk Stage. Is the bailiff here? ”
    “No, but I used to be a police officer. Lead the way.” Roger sounded suitably impressive using his TV police voice. I wondered if they taught all officers to talk that way.
    “We’ll just stay here, and I’ll help Jessie with whatever she needs.” Henry leaned toward me and smiled in an unwholesome manner.
    “No way! I’m going, too.” I took out my cell phone (I was allowed to have one on me