“I take it you two know each other,” said Usara in an undertone.

“We’ve had some dealings in the past.” I dimpled a coquettish smile at Niello, whose hazel eyes brightened hopefully. “You might be able to help us, Niello.”

“How?” he asked a touch warily.

“Do you remember Sorgrad and Sorgren? They were at the Cavalcade with me and Halice, Winter Solstice a year back?”

Niello frowned in thought. “Mountain Men, brothers, the little one rather unpredictable, as one might say?”

I nodded. “That’s them. You haven’t seen them, have you?”

“Not so far, though I have to confess, I could have missed them easily enough.”

“Could you look out for them?” I gave him a hopeful smile with all the wide-eyed charm I could muster. “We have some business to discuss with them.”

Niello looked fondly at me. “I can do better than that, Livvie. Reza’s here with me, the lad who was my runner in Col? He’ll remember that pair well enough, so why don’t I send him around a few of the other inns and masquerades to see if he can find them for you?”

I blew Niello a kiss. “You’re a treasure, do you know that?” And Reza now had an excellent excuse for spying out the competition.

“That’s what all the girls say, my pet. Now, get inside, you’re holding up paying customers!” He raised an arm to let the pair of us through and I led Usara to a table at one side of the courtyard.

“Livvie?” queried Usara with something perilously close to a smirk.

I raised a warning finger. “He’s the only one I let get away with that, and don’t you forget it. If I find anyone else calling me that, I’ll know who’s been talking out of turn!”

“How do you come to know him?” Usara twisted on the low bench to look back at Niello, who was coaxing a blushing youth to bring his wide-eyed companion in for the entertainment.

“I’ve been traveling the length and breadth of Ensaimin for ten years and more; I know a lot of people.” I turned to look for a serving wench. That was enough truth for Usara. In fact my friendship with Niello went back to my heedless girlhood in Vanam, when I spent my free time roaming the city looking for any mischief to enliven the tedium of life as a housemaid. Niello had been a lowly runner in those days, hanging around the Looking Glass and the lesser companies of players who played the inns and temple courtyards, carrying messages, mending costumes, standing with his spear on the edges of the big scenes and hoping for that one chance to take up a mask, to play the part to perfection.

The courtyard was filling up, people packed tightly at the sides of the stage lashed up out of planks and barrels. Rows of benches were set out in front, spectators rolling up cloaks to pad their seats as they prepared to enjoy the spectacle.

“Have you seen this one? The Back Gate Gossips they said it was.” Usara looked expectantly at the scenecloth obscuring the doorway into some back room of the inn where the players were busy organizing masks and costumes. It was painted with a bold portrayal of two improbably colored gardens separated by a looming wall. Two iron gates all wrought with curlicues stood on little platforms on either side of the stage, things that wouldn’t keep out a cat with theft on its mind but that would happily symbolize all manner of barriers for the willing playgoers.

I shook my head. “No, but it’ll be the usual kind of thing, young love frustrated by a stern father or an ambitious mother, a couple of comic bits about a pig and everything coming right after some wicked series of coincidences.” I beckoned to a maidservant who was wandering around looking vacant. “Wine for me and my friend and a flagon for the players, compliments of Mistress Deft.”

The girl looked uncertainly at me. Mistress Deft was an elderly scold from The Orphan’s Tears, a gloomy piece that had blighted every troupe’s repertoire a handful of years ago. “It’s a private joke,” I explained, “Niello will know what it means.”

“Some of the apprentices put that one on for Winter Solstice a couple of years ago,” said Usara unexpectedly.

“Do you have masquerades in Hadrumal then?”

“Only attempts got together for one performance, usually. Proper troupes don’t ever accept invitations, not even from the Archmage.” Usara sounded genuinely puzzled.

“Are you surprised?” I asked, incredulous. “When you mages have spent Saedrin knows how many generations building up your terrifying legends, your hidden island locked away in enchanted mists, powerful sorceries holding the very stones together? What player’s going to take on an audience like that? People throwing fruit if they don’t like the play is bad enough, never mind risking being turned into blackbeetles!”

Usara looked faintly affronted. “People don’t believe those old stories nowadays.”

“You’d be surprised,” I said darkly. Not that I had any intention of dispelling the rumors. If I wanted to impress people by casually mentioning that I had been to the mystical city of the wizards, I was hardly about to tell them it was a staid and tedious place full of self-absorbed scholars and pompous mages. “Remember what you thought before you proved mage-born and were sent off to be apprenticed.”

Usara shook his head. “I’m Hadrumal born and bred, a fourth generation on my mother’s side, five on my father’s and mages borne on every branch of the family tree. For me it’s the mainland that’s where all the mysteries lie!” He grinned and I smiled faintly back at him. How had I managed to travel so many hundreds of leagues with the man and never find that out? I chided myself for that slackness; I’d better be on my guard in case his ignorance landed us in some bear-pit, for all his native wit and subsequent learning. Just how shrewd was he? “So, what did you think of the cockatrice?”

Usara frowned. “It started life as an ordinary cockerel, obviously, until someone cut off its spurs and comb. What I don’t understand is how that man set the spurs growing on its head instead.”

So he’d seen nearly all the trick. “You have to castrate the bird first, so I’ve been told.” A chorus of horns ended all conversation and the Explanatory in his plain white mask and unadorned wig stepped out from behind the backdrop. He gave us the set-up for the tale and the usual broad hint of what moral we might expect to improve us, harking back to the days of pious plays performed in the shrines. As was modern custom, half the audience listened attentively to find out who was who and the other half stirred restively, wanting the dancing girls and the comedy with the pig. I sipped my wine as our hero, a rich youth from the nearside house, came on to declaim his love for the virtuous daughter of the warden of his guild. This paragon was apparently and somewhat improbably off traveling with her aunt. There were jokes about the warden hating anyone who didn’t make coin through honest trade and a few mild sallies about his girth, which must have been written in for local color, given the immoderate laughter they provoked.

The cook of the neighboring house spent a lengthy passage complaining to the hero’s housekeeper about how badly her miserly master treated her and then, to everyone’s relief, the messenger came rushing in with muddy mask and windblown hair firmly set with flour paste. After stressing how private his news was, he proceeded to tell all and sundry how the virtuous maiden had been abducted by hired bravos. As those of the audience who’d failed to see this coming gasped, the band struck up and dancers came skipping out from behind the backcloth.

I nudged Usara. “I’ll have to tell Niello upper-house servants would sit naked on the rooftops before so much as commenting on the weather to a cook!”

The mage didn’t answer, leaning forward for a better view of the girls, whose shapely legs were barely concealed beneath muslin skirts bright with ribbons. Gaily colored half-masks hid their eyes, but not their enticing smiles. After an energetic song, just the tasteful side of bawdy, it was time for the clowns, one hook-nosed and the other moonfaced, so no surprises there. They were playing tradesmen this time, their problem a guard dog who attacked anything in breeches. One clown was a knife-grinder wooing the cook, with all the jokes one might expect about blades and scabbards and we soon learned that the dog was keeping him from getting a regular sharpening. I recognized Niello’s voice behind the hook-nosed mask and he played the scene with a relish that set me giggling.