It was a giving crowd. By the time its disparate portions had wended home, five eggs, a new loaf, and a quarter-sausage had come to rest on Lute’s tattered yellow prop cloth.

“And if a great magician cannot conjure himself a meal, does it follow that he may not conjure a meal for another?” Moonhawk asked, stepping forward and bending to retrieve the three nesting wooden cups.

Lute looked up, mischief glinting in his dark eyes, gaunt face stern.

“The ways of the Craft Magic are not for the student to ridicule,” he said austerely. “You will learn these mysteries in the proper order and with the proper respect. Until then, you will keep a civil tongue in your head, Madam.”

He sounded so like old Laurel, the Witch who had the training of the child Moonhawk, that the adult—woman and Witch in her own right—laughed aloud. Lute grinned, and waved a graceful hand at the accumulated bounty.

“Besides, we’ve conjured enough for a fine dinner and a bit left aside to break our fast. And—” A flourish, a snatch and he held out a quarter-moon, brittle with age. “A coin to trade for ale at the inn. I’m told this village boasts an inn.”

Moonhawk glanced about her, frowning as much against the ill-kept square as against the sun. “It does?”

“There you go again!” Lute cried, slipping the cups from her hand and placing them carefully in his bag. “I can’t recall the last time I spoke to so disrespectful a woman.”

“No doubt my early training is to blame,” Moonhawk returned. “And the fact that one is used to city comfort!”

“No doubt,” Lute agreed, with mortifying sincerity. He finished the various fastenings and straightened, gripping the bag’s handle and giving it a sharp shake. The legs retracted with a snap—mechanical magic, this, not sleight-of-hand. He gestured, showing her the dusty square and rag-tag huts.

“Look about you well. For the world is more nearly like this than it is like Dyan City. The lot of common folk is hard work and short lives, relieved—and the Goddess smiles—by love, and by children, and by an occasional diversion such as myself.”