“Wel … thank you for coming, I suppose. I had thought maybe you could put on a performance or raly or sing-along, whatever, to entertain the men garrisoned here. Is that the sort of thing you do?”

“I do anything that suits me. But it can be made my while, I think.”

“Wel, what do you charge?”

“I’l let you know. Can you show me the setup?”

“First remind me how we came to meet the first time. For the life of me I can’t recal.”

He didn’t comply with her request. “You must meet so many dwarfs in your line of work. Let’s go.”

She didn’t like to be seen taking the air with a dwarf, but she supposed she had no choice. And realy, she thought, what do I care what soldiers think? Bloody hel. They’ve spent the week burning cotton fields.

But she did care, which was annoying.

Stil, she ushered Mr. Boss out of the Green Parlor. The dwarf breathed noisily and spat his tobacco into the prettibels.

In the widest open space among the farm buildings, where two stables and three barns and some carriage sheds fronted a sort of elipse, Private Zackers showed up to refuse her further access. “I have no interest in the barns right now, Zackers,” she told him. “I’m engaging a troupe of traveling players and I’m examining the barnyard as a possible venue.”

“Has the General approved this?” asked Zackers.

She made a disagreeable face. “I’m not submitting to him for reimbursement, Zackers; there’s nothing to approve. I’m supplying my uninvited guests with a little weekend entertainment. I am the lady of Mockbeggar Hal, after al.” She turned to the dwarf. “What do you think?”

“Some can sit in the upper windows and get a balcony view,” he said. “Shal we say sunset tomorrow?”

“How wil I reach you in case plans need to be changed?”

“You won’t need to reach me.”

He was confident. As wel he might be: Cherrystone had no objection. “I saw posters mounted on various kiosks in Zimmerstorm and Haventhur,” he said. “I’d been wondering what it was al about. Bring it on.”

So, ten days after the burning of the first cotton field, Glinda left Miss Murth and Chef and Rain behind. They could keep an eye on the silver if nothing else. She accepted the arm Puggles extended to her because the cobbles were uneven. Cherrystone had arranged a chair for her—one of the precious bon Scavela chairs from the Hal of Painted Arches!—but she pretended not to be outraged.

Men surrounded her in jostling, good-natured mumble. The ones nearer the appointed arena had brought cloaks upon which to sit, but most of the felows stood, arms about one another’s shoulders, or leaned against the various wals. Several hay carts provided mezzanine seating, while other felows appeared in the hay doors under the peaks of the barn roofs. From a height sometimes known as the gods they swung their heels and hooted at their buddies.