After a few days of this, it was amazing how glad people were to see the stupid-looking kid with his magical rat pipe. And they were amazed when rats poured out of every hole to follow him out of the town. They were so amazed that they didn't bother much about the fact that there were only a few hundred rats.

They'd have been really amazed if they'd ever found out that the rats and the piper met up with a cat somewhere in the bushes out of town, and solemnly counted out the money.

Bad Blintz was waking up when Maurice entered with the kid. No-one bothered them, although Maurice got a lot of interest. This did not worry him. He knew he was interesting. Cats walked as if they owned the place anyway, and the world was full of stupid-looking kids and people weren't rushing to see another one.

It looked as though today was a market day, but there weren't many stalls and they were mostly selling, well, junk. Old pans, pots, used shoes… the kind of things people have to sell when they're short of money.

Maurice had seen plenty of markets, on their journeys through other towns, and he knew how they should go.

“There should be fat women selling chickens,” he said. “And people selling sweets for the kids, and ribbons. Tumblers and clowns. Even weasel jugglers, if you're lucky.”

“There's nothing like that. There's hardly anything to buy, by the look of it,” said the kid. “I thought you said this was a rich town, Maurice.”

“Well, it looked rich,” said Maurice. “All those big fields in the valley, all those boats on the river… you'd think the streets'd be paved with gold!”

The kid looked up. “Funny thing,” he said.

“What?”

“The people look poor,” he said. “It's the buildings that look rich.”

And they did. Maurice wasn't an expert on architecture but the wooden buildings had been carefully carved and painted. He noticed something else, too. There was nothing careful about the sign that had been nailed up on the nearest wall.