Free Merlin's Booke by Jane Yolen Page A

“Will you lend a hand?”
    The soldier grunted.
    â€œAnd my boy comes, too,” said Ambrosius.
    Putting his head to one side as if considering, the soldier asked, “Is he strong enough to carry these? He looks small and puling.”
    â€œHe can carry if he has to, but he is more than that to us.”
    The soldier laughed. “You will have no need of a tambourine boy to pass among the gentlefolk and soldiers. Her ladyship will see that you are well enough paid.”
    Ambrosius stood very tall and dropped his voice to a deep, harsh whisper. “I have performed in higher courts than this. I know what is fit for fairs and what is fit for a great hall. You know not to whom you speak.”
    The soldier drew back.
    Viviane smiled but carefully, so that the soldier could not see it, and played three low notes on the harp.
    Merlin did not move. It was as if for a moment the entire kitchen had turned to stone.
    Then the soldier gave a short, barking laugh, but his face was wary. “Do not mock me, mage. I saw him do nothing but pick up coins.”
    â€œThat is because he only proffers his gifts for people of station. I am but a mage, a man of small magics and tricks that fool the eye. But the boy is something more.” He walked toward Merlin slowly, his hand outstretched.
    Still Merlin did not move, though imperceptibly he stood taller. Ambrosius put his hand on Merlin’s shoulders.
    â€œThe boy is a reader of dreams,” said the mage. “What he dreams comes true.”
    â€œIs this so?” asked the soldier, looking around.
    â€œIt is so,” said Viviane.
    Merlin closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, they were the color of an ocean swell, blue-green washed with gray. “It is so,” he said at last.
    From the hearth where he was basting the joints of meat, the cook called out, “It is true that the boy dreamed here today. About two dragons. I heard him cry out in his sleep.”
    The soldier, who had hopes of a captaincy, thought a moment, then said, “Very well, all three of you come with me. Up the stairs. Now.” He cornered young Stephen to carry the mage’s boxes, and marched smartly out the door.
    The others followed quickly, though Merlin hung back long enough to give the other boy a hand.
    Viviane sang first, a medley of love songs that favored the duke and his lady in turn. With the skill of a seasoned entertainer, she inserted the Lady Renwein’s name into her rhyme, but called the duke in the songs merely “The Duke of Carmarthen town.” (Later she explained to Merlin that the only rhymes she had for the duke’s name were either scurrilous or treasonous, and sang a couple of verses to prove it.) Such was her ability, each took the songs as flattering, though Merlin thought he detected a nasty undertone in them that made him uncomfortable. But Viviane was roundly applauded and at the end of her songs, two young soldiers picked her up between them and set her upon, their table for an encore. She smiled prettily at them, but Merlin knew she hated their touch, for the smile was one she reserved for particularly messy children, drunken old men—and swine.
    Deftly beginning his own performance at the moment Viviane ended hers, Ambrosius was able to cover any unpleasantness that might occur if one of the soldiers dared take liberties with Viviane as she climbed down from the tabletop. He began with silly tricks—eggs, baskets, even a turtle was plucked from the air or from behind an unsuspecting soldier’s ear. The tortoise was the one the mage had found when they had been fishing.
    Then Ambrosius moved on to finer tricks, guessing the name of a soldier’s sweetheart, finding the red queen in a deck of cards missing yet discovering it under the Lady Renwein’s plate, and finally making Viviane disappear and reappear in a series of boxes through which he had the soldiers thrust their swords.
    The