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enthusiastic. And several strolling players are trying their tricks. But none, I wager, anywhere near our range. We shall do very well here, I smell it." He tapped his nose with his long right finger and smiled. "Very well indeed."

9. SECRETS
    IN A SUIT OF GREENS AND GOLDS—THE GOLD a cotta of the mage's that Viviane had tailored to fit him, the green some old hose sewn over with gold patches and bells—Hobby strode through the crowd with a tambourine collecting coins after each performance.
    "Our boy Hobby will pass amongst you, a small hawk among the pigeons," Ambrosius had announced before completing his final trick, the one in which Viviane was shut up in a box and subsequently disappeared, appearing again with a great flourish at the wagon's door.
    Hobby had glowed when Ambrosius pronounced his name and claimed, aloud, possession of him.
Our
boy, the mage said, as if they were a family, just the three of them. As in his dream. Hobby repeated the phrase
sotto voce
and smiled. That infectious smile brought coins waterfalling into his tambourine, though he was unaware of its power.
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    On the third day of the fair, after their evening performance, when Viviane had sung in three different voices at the wagon's door, a broad-faced soldier with a red plume came up to them and stood carefully at attention.
    He waited for the crowd to dissipate, then announced to Ambrosius: "The Lady Renwein would have you come this evening to the old palace and sends this purse by way of a promise. There will be more if the performance is satisfactory." He dropped the purse into Ambrosius' hand.
    The mage bowed low and then, with a wink at Hobby, began drawing out a series of colored scarves from behind the soldier's ear. They were all shades of red: crimson, pink, vermillion, flame, scarlet, carmine, and rose.
    "For your lady," he said to the soldier.
    The soldier relaxed, laughed, and took them. "They are her colors. She will be pleased. Though not, I think, his lordship."
    "The white soldiers are his, then?" asked Ambrosius.
    The soldier grunted. It was all the answer he gave. "Be in the kitchen for dinner. You shall eat what the cook eats."
    "Then let us hope," Viviane said, taking the purse from Ambrosius' hand, "that we like what the cook likes."
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    They packed up all they would need for the performance in two large baskets and walked toward the old palace at six of the clock, the bells ringing out the hour.
    Along the wall of the old palace were ranged guards in pairs, one red and one white. Ambrosius pulled on his beard thoughtfully.
    "Hobby," he asked, "when you went through the fair between our performances, did you hear any of the guards talking?"
    "Not talking exactly," Hobby said. "But matching names."
    "What names?"
    "The red guards called the white guards things like ‘Dirty Men of a Dirty Duke.' "
    "And the white?"
    "Must I say?" Hobby asked. "It touches on the lady's reputation."
    "You must," the mage answered. "What touches her, may touch us."
    "She was called Dragonlady."
    "Ah," Viviane said. "And that is no good thing? I have been called worse in my time." She laughed.
    Hobby felt his cheeks sting with embarrassment. "And the red guards called the Duke ‘Draco.' Two dragons in the same nest might make for a difficult marriage."
    "A difficult performance for us at any rate," Ambrosius said. "But hush. We near the palace gate."

10. THE PLAYERS
    THE CASTLE WAS INDEED OLD. ITS KEEP, FROM the time of the Romans, stood mottled and pocked. The newer parts of the building, while colorful, were of shoddy material and worse workmanship. Ambrosius remarked on it quietly as they passed along the corridors.
    "The sounds of construction we heard are not from here but for a brand-new castle," he said. "One hopes it is better built than this."
    But when they reached the kitchen, the cook—with a stomach as round as a drum and a mouth that seemed always open—told them how badly that building was going. "The