He oughtn't to meet her back here when the boats came in, Would a lady even know so commonplace a thing as the time a fishing fleet returned? If she didn't see him that afternoon, she would forget this idea of him and magery. Everyone knew the nobility was flighty, except for Duke Vedris.

Pasco looked around and found just Osa, napping beside his rowboat. Osa's father had gone off fishing without paying forthe dance.

So I'll have to come anyway, to see if they still want to pay me, thought Pasco, wandering over to the sand where he'd danced. Dawn had. come: in the sunlight he could see the patterns made by his feet and the rope net.

Pasco grinned. Suddenly the idea of an Acalon who danced magic was as funny as anything, a joke and a half.

"I have it," he told the air and a few seagulls that had landed to pick for clams as the tide went out. I'll be a dancing harrier, only 'stead of putting my hand on the lawbreakers, I'll—I'll dance 'em into my coop!"

"Are you done being foolish?" Osa demanded, getting to his feet. "I've chores to do yet today. And don't you have law and baton-fighting lessons?"

Pasco yelped, and ran to his friend. "No lessons till later," he told Osa, helping the other boy to push the boat into the water. "But I promised Mama I'd help sort one of the storerooms this morning!"

They jumped into the boat as it floated free. Each of them took an oar this time, and began to row.

When Harbor Street filled up with gawkers a block from the scene of the murder, Sandry's guards did not ask whether she wanted to push on or not. Like the other residents of Duke's Citadel, Kwaben and Oama had learned weeks ago what happened when Sandry wished to join her uncle and was kept from doing so. They urged their mounts ahead of hers and began to open a path with their booted feet and with their horses. People complained until they saw who barged through so rudely. Then they made room for the girl and her escort.