Free The River and the Book by Alison Croggon

told – usually by people who have never been there – that it is best to avoid the Magicians’ Quarter. Like the Old Quarter, it has a bad reputation. It’s true that it feels sinister. It’s very easy to get lost if you don’t pay attention, and sometimes you wonder if the streets are playing tricks on you. I first went there, in fact, to consult a magician myself, but to my disappointment he was a charlatan. Worse, he saw that I knew he was a fraud – he had enough of the powers to see that I have something of the art – and without quite threatening me openly, he made me afraid. I never went back there until my friend Yuri dragged me to the Stray Dog one bleak night last winter, when the whole world was sitting on my shoulders and weighing me down and I was as sad as sad. He said it would cheer me up, and it did.
    I had never been in a place like the Stray Dog before. The only thing that signals it from the street is a crudely painted picture of a dog on the brickwork next to a sinister-looking door. Inside the door, a flight of badly lit stairs leads down into the darkness, where you find a huge man whose name is Andre. His thigh muscles are about as big as my waist, and a tall black hat makes him look even bigger, so it seems a wonder that he can fit in the narrow corridor where he sits on a stool by a shabby table, playing cards and drinking whisky. He can seem frightening until you get to know him and realize he is one of the gentlest men you are ever likely to meet. He comes from a distant country, like Jane Watson, although he told me his home is a long way away from hers, and that he comes from a northern land covered in ice. He stands out because he has white-blond hair and fair, freckled skin. He’s the one who decides whether or not you can come in, and he sorts out any trouble. He won’t let in anyone who looks like a secret policeman, or a thug looking for trouble, and he has an unerring instinct. Mazita, the owner of the Stray Dog, tells me that without Andre the café would have been forced to close a long time ago.
    Inside, the walls are painted with strange scenes in bright colours: there are dogs in funny hats and dancing cats and horses with large, strange flowers nodding between their ears. The café is crammed with round tables with spindly legs, each with its litter of wooden chairs, none of which match, and on each table burns a fat red candle. The Stray Dog makes very good coffee and sells bad but cheap wine that gives you a fearsome headache if you drink too much of it. Mazita is an excellent cook and serves delicious little dishes of salted squid or fried bean curd or spiced vegetables. But that’s not the major attraction. The reason people go is because it has the best parties in town.
    There is a tiny stage against the wall backed by a sparkly silver curtain. Yuri plays there once a week. He is one of many musicians and singers who perform there, and through him I met Icana and Anna and Ling Ti. They have become friends of mine. Icana and Anna are always together, and they make a striking pair. Icana is a singer with a voice like musk and honey. She is taller than most men, and she wears long dresses of black lace and trailing embroidered shawls that show off her white skin and the startling ash-blonde hair that falls down her back. Anna is as short and brown-skinned as I am, and has black hair cropped close around her head. Her eyes are so dark they look black, and she has straight fierce eyebrows and a mouth like the bud of a rose. She has beautiful large breasts and a tiny waist, and she wears skirts and shirts with wide red belts to show off her figure. Ling Ti is tall and his hair sweeps back from his forehead. He is charming and funny and vain, and, like Anna, he is a very fine poet. It was Ling Ti who recited to me the whole of the poem that begins:
Watch for the cranes, who will bring my love to you, even as far as the Plains of Pembar…
    With Yuri and Mely, they are my