"No, Father," Krispos said.

His father laughed. "Not until your backside cools off, anyway. Well, good enough. Here's your shirt." He got out of his own and walked down to the stream, to come back a few minutes later wet and dripping and running his hands through his hair.

Krispos watched him dress, then said carefully, "Father, is it arguing if I ask why you and I should take baths, but Mama shouldn't?"

For a bad moment he thought it was, and braced himself for another smack. But then his father said, "Hmm—maybe it isn't. Put it like this—no matter how clean we are, no Kubrati will find you or me pretty. You follow that?"

"Yes," Krispos said, although he thought his father—with his wide shoulders, neat black beard, and dark eyes set so deep beneath shaggy brows that sometimes the laughter lurking there was almost hidden—a fine and splendid man. But, he had to admit, that wasn't the same as pretty.

"All right, then. Now you've already seen how the Kubratoi are thieves. Phos, boy, they've stolen all of us, and our animals, too. And if one of them saw your mother looking especially pretty, the way she can—" Listening, she smiled at Krispos' father, but did not speak, "—he might want to take her away for his very own. We don't want that to happen, do we?"

"No!" Krispos' eyes got wide as he saw how clever his mother and father were. "I see! I understand! It's a trick, like when the wizard made Gemistos' hair turn green at the show he gave."

"A little like that, anyhow," his father agreed. "But that was real magic. Gemistos' hair really was green, till the wizard changed it back to brown again. This is more a game, like when men and women switch clothes sometimes on the Midwinter's Day festival. Do I turn into your mama because I'm wearing a dress?"

"Of course not!" Krispos giggled. But that wasn't supposed to fool anyone; as his father said, it was only a game. Here, now, his mother's prettiness remained, though she was trying to hide it so no one noticed. And if hiding something in plain sight wasn't magic, Krispos didn't know what was.