“I sent a tapestry to the judging once,” Molly remembered. “It came in fourth. Fifth. A knight at vigil‌—‌everyone was doing vigils that year.” Suddenly she was scrubbing her eyes with horny knuckles. “Damn you, Cully.”

“What, what?” he yelled in exasperation. “Is it my fault you didn’t keep up with your weaving? Once you had your man, you let all your accomplishments go. You don’t sew or sing any more, you haven’t illuminated a manuscript in years‌—‌and what happened to that viola da gamba I got you?” He turned to Schmendrick. “We might as well be married, the way she’s gone to seed.” The magician nodded fractionally, and looked away.

“And as for righting wrongs and fighting for civil liberties, that sort of thing,” Dick Fancy said, “it wouldn’t be so bad‌—‌I mean, I’m not the crusader type myself, some are and some aren’t‌—‌but then we have to sing those songs about wearing Lincoln green and aiding the oppressed. We don’t, Cully, we turn them in for the reward, and those songs are just embarrassing, that’s all, and there’s the truth of it.”

Captain Cully folded his arms, ignoring the outlaws’ snarls of agreement. “Sing the songs, Willie.”

“I’ll not.” The minstrel would not raise a hand to touch his lute. “And you never fought my brothers for any stone, Cully! You wrote them a letter, which you didn’t sign—”

Cully drew back his arm, and blades blinked among the men as though someone had blown on a heap of coals. At this point Schmendrick stepped forward again, smiling urgently. “If I may offer an alternative,” he suggested, “why not let your guest earn his night’s lodging by amusing you? I can neither sing nor play, but I have my own accomplishments, and you may not have seen their like.”

Jack Jingly agreed immediately, saying, “Aye, Cully, a magician! ’Twould be a rare treat for the lads.” Molly Grue grumbled some savage generalization about wizards as a class, but the men shouted with quick delight, throwing one another into the air. The only real reluctance was shown by Captain Cully himself, who protested sadly, “Yes, but the songs. Mr. Child must hear the songs.”

“And so I will,” Schmendrick assured him. “Later.” Cully brightened then and cried to his men to give way and make room. They sprawled and squatted in the shadows, watching with sprung grins as Schmendrick began to run through the old flummeries with which he had entertained the country folk at the Midnight Carnival. It was paltry magic, but he thought it diverting enough for such a crew as Cully’s.

But he had judged them too easily. They applauded his rings and scarves, his ears full of goldfish and aces, with a proper politeness but without wonder. Offering no true magic, he drew no magic back from them; and when a spell failed‌—‌as when, promising to turn a duck into a duke for them to rob, he produced a handful of duke cherries‌—‌he was clapped just as kindly and vacantly as though he had succeeded. They were a perfect audience.