"So who's on duty tomorrow?" asked a young woman with a remarkably large nose and slender build. "Not me, I know that much." It sounded like the resumption of a conversation her arrival had interrupted.
"Little Robere, Bald Robere, Blind Robere, Tammio Blackboard, Mindy, and Berto Lightfingers, that's all I know of," another voice said, from the other side of the fire. "There's a special demon-possession up; Padrik has a point he wants to make and a woman he wants to get back at, and people are getting bored with invisible demons anyway. Should be a good show, and it's going to be an impressive enough thing we don't need a big parade of victims."
"Oh, good," the large-nosed girl said with a grin. "That means I'm off. They keep making me play blind, and my legs are black and blue from stumbling into things."
"The bruises make it look good, dearie," said an old woman, with a cackle. "Now I remember when I played blind _"
"Oh yes, we know all about that, granny," a young man interrupted rudely. "We've heard it all a hundred times, how you broke a leg just to prove you couldn't see a thing. If I hear it again, I'm going to choke."
The grandmother looked mortally offended, and drew herself up with immense, if flawed, dignity. "Well!" she exclaimed. "If me wisdom and experience are going to fall on deaf ears, I will just go elsewhere, that I will!"
She limped off into the darkness, muttering to herself. The thump of her cane on the cobblestones punctuated her grumblings. Several of the younger Gypsies around the fire snickered.
One of the young men looked at Robin curiously for a moment, and she was certain that he was going to ask her who she was. But he only passed her the wineskin, and after she took her mouthful of rather good wine (from the High Bishops cellars, no doubt), she realized why he hadn't confronted her with a demand for her identity.
"Who's special duty?" he asked instead. "Any magic tricks tomorrow besides the new demon?"
"Only the Chief and that Priest he works with. No one else, not even the peacock," the nose-girl said. Robin laughed a little, with a rueful grimace, and he grinned and winced. She passed the skin back to him.
He had seen her_in the Cathedral. And since he was seeing her now, here, he simply assumed that she was one of the other "special helpers." Perhaps there were Patsonos coming and going all the time_Patsono was a small Clan, but she had no idea of the true numbers. Perhaps there was not enough room for all of them here. Perhaps they were still collecting far-flung members as word spread they were needed.
For whatever the reason, she was accepted without question or qualm, and she took instant advantage of the fact, feeling a little smug. Kestrel had overreacted, of course. It was going to be satisfying to point out just how badly he had overreacted....
"Bishop's got good wine," remarked someone, as the skin came around to him. The boy nearest Robin laughed drunkenly.
"Better'n I've ever had, anyway," the tipsy one said, slurring his words a bit. "Good food, good wine, an' trickin' the rootfeet! This's th' best!"
The girl with the nose laughed, just as someone threw another log on the fire, making it flare and casting a ruddy light on her face that made her seem diabolical. She had the most unpleasant laugh it had ever been Robin's misfortune to hear; it wasn't quite a scream, and it wasn't quite a bray, it was a combination of the two.
She sounded rather like the peacock. Maybe they ought to use her and get rid of the bird.
"What I love," she announced to one and all, "is that it's usin' their own religion to part 'em from everything they got! You seen those sheep when them Priests tell 'em they got cursed money? They can't throw it at us fast enough!"
She got a round of laughter at that. "Like that old goat t'day," the fellow on the other side of the fire said. "Had a bad minute with him, I thought when the priest told him 'bout the curse that he was gonna fall over with a brain-storm. Went purple, he did."
That unleashed another flood of anecdotes, with the nose-girl lamenting that she wasn't a little child anymore, since the children who were "healed" were often showered with gifts from the onlookers.
"Witnesses, Padrik calls 'em." The nose-girl sniggered. "Right. Tell 'em what they're gonna see, an' they sure do see it!"
"I hear that the Chief Robere's working on a really big illusion," the across-the-fire-voice offered. "It'll make the demon look_like a Faire-trick, so they say. Padrik asked him, says he wants a way to get the root-feet to think they got to come up with the money for a hospice. An angel as big's the Cathedral, with, like, a big hospice in its hands. That'll make 'em cough up the silver."
"Gold too, for an angel," the nose-girl mused, the light of greed in her eyes. "How much of that do we get, you reckon? That'd be something."
Whatever else she was going to say was interrupted by the arrival of a much older, gray-haired man with a aura of self-important authority. "Meetings running long," he said without preamble. "We're gettin' hungry and thirsty, an' we don't want the Bishops servants carrying tales _"
"So you're lookin' for volunteers t' keep the cups an' plates filled, huh?" the nose-girl sighed. "Gray Tombere, I swear you think that's all we were born t' do for you Chiefs. You'd think we was servants."