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my fortune. I'll take what you paid the last one."
She had good teeth, too. "All right, you're our Columbine. But on sufferance, mind. We've got an important engagement, a very important engagement. It happens when you attract the crowds and praise we have. If you don't give a fine performance, you're out. If you do, well, it's one silver per fortnight and a fair share of whatever they throw onto the stage."
"That's well, I agree."
"Anton! Look out the window." Garin, still wearing the gray beard from his Pantalone costume, came pounding up the stairs.
"What? I'm busy."
Garin pushed past him and threw open the shutters of the window behind Baraselli's table.
"Damn it, you'll let the night air and the bogles in, you fool." Baraselli stood abruptly, jarring the table and slopping wine onto the stained floor.
"But look at this." Garin pointed. The Mummer's Mask stood in a huddle of taverns and old houses on the side of a low hill commanding a good view of the River Quarter. Lying before them were the narrow overhung streets of the older and poorer area, which eventually led into the vast plazas and pillared promenades surrounded by the garden courts of the wealthy. Farther to the west and standing high above the slate and wooden roofs were the domes of churches, the fantastic and fanciful statues ornamenting the gables of the fortified Great Houses, the spires of the stone-filigree palaces on the artificial islands on the river's upper reaches, all transformed into anonymous shapes of alternating black and silver as clouds drifted past the moon. But now, against the stark shadowy forms of the crowded structures of the River Quarter, they could see the bright glow of fire, a harsh splash of color in the darkness.
"Down near Cross Street, I think," Garin said.
More of the troupe had drifted up the stairs in his wake, curious. "Lord save it doesn't spread," one of them whispered.
"Another bad omen," Baraselli muttered. One of the clowns had died of