I poured myself a small beer, lit a pipe, and joined the pre-show card game in the green room. I say “pre,” but it would go on through the show, pausing only when too many of us were onstage to continue.

By the end of the second scene, the game was going badly. For me, I mean. It was going swimmingly for everyone else. I sipped my stale beer and tried to figure out how much I had lost so far.

Like most Cresdon theatres, the Eagle did double duty as a tavern and was famed for its taproom, which served beer throughout the show. When there was nothing going on onstage, cards, dice, and darts were the rule. All of these humble pastimes could be turned to advantage by a perceptive and audacious actor-cum-gambler, storyteller, and performer: namely, me. William Hawthorne, known as Will the Sharp or Quick Bill to the patrons of the Eagle Theatre and Tavern, at your service. Care to place a bet, sir, madam?

Except that it was only me who used the epithets of Quick Bill or Will the Sharp, and if your ears were good enough, you would be more likely to hear those worthy patrons announce me as Bill the Cheat, Lying Will, That Kid Who Tried to Rip Me Off, etc. etc. In fact, Bill the Incompetent might be nearer the mark, as a quick tally of today’s winnings suggested.

See, the taproom was, generally speaking, fairly easy pickings. Most of the people who came to play were either regulars (who you knew to avoid) or incompetents who couldn’t fork their cash over to you fast enough. But I wasn’t in the taproom now; I was in the green room. Normally I played conservatively here, but today I was nervous, perhaps a little too anxious to show how little I cared whether they gave me a job or not in a couple of hours. The combination had made me reckless.